The Environmental,Commercial and Regulatory Implications of SAE Recommended Practice J57a for Truck Tire Sound Levels

There can be no control over environmental pollution without methods for measuring how the environment is being affected by mankind. Consequently, when traffic noise was identified in 1964 by communities as an important form of pollution, it became necessary to measure the amounts of noise present and to assign relative importances to various sources in vehicular traffic.

Truck tires were identified as being significant contributors and engineers from the tire and truck manufacturing industries acting under the auspices of the SAE set about to develop a test procedure that satisfied the immediate need - to initiate control over truck tire noise.

This paper is a review of the outcome of that effort by one who participated in the earlier work on the testing standard. How well the method works, and how well it serves to meet the objectives now on the horizon are the preliminary topics of this discussion. The paper contains a discussion of the accumulated experience in testing tire noise and the current indications for a meaningful test procedure.