Noise pollution has recently been one of the growing problems all over the world. While there are many sources of the noise, traffic noise is the main contributor to the total environmental noise. Although there are different sources for traffic noise, the tire pavement interaction noise is the most dominant component within most city and highway limits. One of the ways to reduce the tire pavement noise is to improve the material characteristics of the pavements such that they produce less noise. In this study, the relationship between basic material characteristics (e.g., Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA) volumetrics) and sound generation and absorption characteristics of flexible pavements was investigated. In addition, the effect of linear visco-elastic properties (e.g., dynamic modulus (|E*|) and phase angle (δ)) on sound absorption was studied. In order to focus only on impact of material characteristics and overshadow the effect of surface texture, a novel laboratory tire pavement noise measurement simulator (TIPANOS) was developed. The statistical analysis results showed that although the individual material characteristics do not have appreciable influence on sound absorption, there is a significant correlation between sound pressure levels (SPL) and combination of several material and linear visco-elastic parameters.
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