An investigation of the relationship between texture and tyre/road noise for different types of road surfaces and passenger car tyres

The texture of the road surface has a major influence on the generation of tyre/road noise. For dense surfaces this may be the most important factor besides the tyre characteristics themselves. Throughout several projects, SINTEF has performed measurements of the tyre/road noise of a wide range of passenger car tyres on different types of road surfaces. These road surfaces are both normally used road surfaces in Norway and road surfaces on test areas. In this paper, some results from the analysis of the relationship between the texture levels and the tyre/road noise levels are presented. In previous investigations it has been found that there is a positive correlation between texture levels at longer wavelengths (like 20–200 mm) and the noise levels, while there is a negative correlation between texture levels at shorter wavelengths (below 8 mm) and the noise levels. In our analysis, the former is confirmed and the latter is found true for some data sets, but not for others. The analysis also shows that the noise from different tyres has a similar relationship with texture, even if the overall noise levels differ.