Improving the Acoustical Performance of Porous Asphalt Pavements

Details

• Creators:
  DeMoss, Jeffrey ; Landsberger, B.J. ; McNerney, Michael T.
• Corporate Creators:
  University of Texas at Austin. Center for Transportation Research
• Corporate Contributors:
  Texas. Dept. of Transportation
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Traffic noise
  • Asphalt pavements
  • Sound absorption
  • Laboratory tests
  • Pavement design
  • Acoustical absorption
  • Noise reduction
  • Porous asphalt
• Publication/ Report Number:
  Report No. FHWA/TX-7-2957-1
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  Texas ; United States
• Corporate Publisher:
  University of Texas at Austin. Center for Transportation Research
• Abstract:
  Selection of pavement for noise reduction considerations is becoming a major concern for those involved in highway construction within densely populated areas. However, the pavements available are designed for durability and safety reasons and not for their acoustic characteristics. The purpose of this study is to develop a pavement design criterion for improved acoustical performance. Existing porous media theory can be used to predict the absorption characteristics of asphalt pavements. Experiments and theoretical analysis were performed on test pavement samples to determine the acoustical characteristics of different pavement mixes where aggregate size, pavement layer thickness, percent of air voids, mix of aggregates and amount of screenings were varied. Tests were conducted on both single and multiple-layer pavement laboratory samples. Good agreement was found between the predicted and measured values of absorption. It is shown that by varying the thickness of the pavement layers the peak value of absorption can be matched to achieve maximum noise reduction at the frequencies where traffic noise is most prominent.
• Format:
  PDF
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/14868/dot_14868_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 3.47 MB]
• Collection(s):
  US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:f88b751037155bab931922536e990c6347a2d8605760376cdad8c07250b5ead6