The Influence of Truck Tire Type and Pavement on the Emission of Noise from Trucks under Highway Operating Conditions

Typically, the noise emission from trucks under highway cruise conditions is not reduced as much as it is for light vehicles when quieter pavements are used. Potential reasons for this are that other noise sources beside tire/pavement noise are more significant for trucks than light vehicles and/or the effect of pavement on truck tire noise generation is different than it is for light vehicle. As the cruising passby noise levels of trucks are about 10 dB greater than for light vehicles, this becomes an important issue for highway noise abatement when trucks make up even a relatively small percentage of the traffic flow. To investigate this issue, beam forming and conventional passby testing methods were used to investigate the contribution of both tire/pavement noise and the other noise sources for common types of heavy trucks. To isolate the tire/pavement effects, the onboard sound intensity (OBSI) measurements were made on a variety of asphalt surfaces using a passenger car tire and seven different truck tire designs. The results from both of these studies suggest that while other sources on trucks are important, differences in the way that some truck tires respond to pavement changes may be an appreciable factor in the differential effect of quieter pavement on cars and trucks.