The Simulation of Truck Tire Rolling Noise

The road transportation sector places a severe burden on large parts of the population in the form of road traffic noise. A main contributor to this is the rolling noise generated by the tires of trucks and other heavy vehicles. Advanced simulation tools are not only needed for a better physical understanding of rolling noise generation, but also for the design of quieter tires and road surfaces. So far the development of suitable simulation tools for the prediction of rolling noise has mostly been focussed on car tires. Whether results are applicable to truck tires as well remains unclear. In this study an advanced tool which previously has been successfully used for the simulation of car tire rolling noise is extended and applied to a 315/80 R22.5 truck tire. The sound radiation for steady-state rolling on different road surfaces is calculated and compared to measurements. Very good agreement between simulations and measurements is achieved for the total A-weighted sound pressure level. The agreement between measured and simulated third-octave band spectra is generally good. Finally, the number of different road surface texture scans which are available for a particular road is identified as an important parameter for the quality of the simulations.