PURPOSES : The exposed aggregate concrete pavement (EACP) is adopted to achieve low traffic noise and long-term skid resistance in European countries such as Belgium and Germany. In Korea, it is first introduced at the Myeon Cheon field site in 2010. It reduces 3 dB(A) from tire–pavement noise compared with transverse tining. Recent investigations show that EACP can reduce tire–pavement noise by an additional 5 dB(A) compared with transverse tining. In this study, the tire–pavement interaction noise of EACP is compared with that of conventional pavements such as asphalt pavement, next-generation concrete surfaces (NGCS), and transverse tining. METHODS : EACP is constructed at two field sites on the SOC research center and Yeo-Ju test road to compare the noise level via close proximity noise measurement. In addition, the noise is measured using two vehicle type based on vehicle speeds of 60, 80, and 100 km/h. RESULTS : The results of noise measurement obtained from the SOC research center are as follows: Porous asphalt pavement 92.8 dB(A), HMA 96. dB(A), transverse tining 100.1 dB(A), and 8 mm EACP 97 dB(A) at a driving speed of 80 km/h. For the case of the Yeo-Ju test road. The noise levels at a driving speed of 80 km/h are as follows: 6 mm EACP, 93.6 dB(A); asphalt grooving pavement, 94.72 dB(A); 8 mm EACP, 95.2 dB(A); NGCS, 95.2 dB(A); transverse tining, 104.1 dB(A). CONCLUSIONS : The result of noise measurement of two sites in the SOC research center and test road shows that the noise level of the 6 mm EAC is lower than that of concrete pavement, such as tining and NGCS, and similar to that of asphalt pavement. In addition, the noise level of the 8 mm EAC is similar to that of the NGCS pavement. The noise reduction effect of the EAC is greater when small-sized coarse aggregates with lower flat and elongation ratios are used.

PURPOSES : The purpose of this study is to estimate the reduction in traffic noise in a double-layered specific porous pavement at roadsides based on variations in traffic volume and driving speed. METHODS : A statistical pass-by (SPB) method was employed in this study to measure noise. Variations in the following parameters were measured: running speed, heavy traffic percentage, and traffic volume. RESULTS : Quantitative analysis revealed that the double-layered porous pavement reduced noise levels by 9.16 dB(A) at a 95% confidence level at the sides of roads. CONCLUSIONS : As a countermeasure of traffic noise, porous pavement has been recommended. This research quantitatively proved that double-layered porous pavement can reduce traffic noise by more than 9.0 dB(A) at roadsides

PURPOSES : The purpose of this study is to estimate the reduction of traffic noise in a double-layered specific porous pavement based on the traffic speed variation. METHODS : The close-proximity method was used in noise measurement, and the running speed was measured at 10 km/h and from 50 to 80 km/h. RESULTS : From the quantitative analysis, it was found that the double-layered porous pavement reduced by 9.4 dB (A) on the average and 9.16 dB (A) at a 95% confidence level. CONCLUSIONS : The use of porous pavements have been recommended to minimize traffic noise. In this study, it is quantitatively demonstrated that the double-layered porous pavement can reduce the traffic noise by more than 9.0 dB(A).

PURPOSES : This paper is aimed at suggesting a novel approach for determining the pavement condition rating based on the tire-surface friction noise using a machine learning algorithm as a low-end pavement condition monitoring system. METHODS : Vehicle on-board type noise measurement system according to the ISO11819-2, and the K-nearest neighbors with dynamic time warping algorithm were applied. The system and algorithm were empirically tested with a field study. RESULTS : The developed AI- and noise-based pavement condition monitoring system demonstrated significantly positive results with a precision 90.8%, recall 84.8%, and f1-score 86.1%. CONCLUSIONS: We herein confirmed that the acoustic property between the tire and road surface can be used for monitoring pavement conditions. It is believed this finding presented a new paradigm for monitoring pavement conditions based on visual information. However, extensive studies focused on the practical application of this method are required.

PURPOSES: This paper presents the noise reduction effect of asphalt concrete pavement using steel slag aggregate. METHODS: Steel slag aggregates induce various mechanical effects because of their high stiffness and specific gravity. It is also known that the noise reduction effect is due to its high specific gravity and porous nature. In this study, the noise reduction in a steel slag asphalt concrete pavement section was measured and analyzed. RESULTS : On average, an asphalt concrete pavement with steel slag reduces road traffic noise by about 2 dB(A). In addition, the analysis of sound pressure levels by frequency showed lower sound pressure levels in steel slag asphalt concrete pavement than general HMA in all frequency ranges (from low to high frequencies). An analysis of the benefits with regard to noise, by assuming a road-traffic noise reduction of 2 dB(A) with asphalt concrete pavement using steel slag, shows that the noise abatement cost approach can save 1.6 million won a year over soundproof wall costs. In addition, the noise damage cost approach results in cost savings (with regard to noise) of between 19 and 60 million won per year depending on the population density. CONCLUSIONS: The use of steel slag aggregate as an asphalt concrete mixture material not only improves the mechanical performance but also has a noise reduction effect. It is expected that the steel slag asphalt concrete pavement can reduce the environmental burden by utilizing resources and provide a safer and more comfortable pavement condition to the road users.

PURPOSES : Exposed aggregate concrete pavements have been adopted in several countries because of their advantages of pavement texture characteristics, which can produce low tire-pavement noise and higher load-carrying capacities. The magnitude of tire-pavement noise greatly depends on the wavelength of pavement texture. The wavelength of exposed aggregate concrete pavement can be controlled with maximum sizing and by controlling the amount of coarse aggregates in the concrete mixture. In this study, the maximum size and the amount of coarse aggregate in the exposed aggregate concrete pavement are investigated to produce equal levels of wavelength in the asphalt pavement. METHODS: A simple method to measure the average wavelength of pavement texture is introduced. Subsequently, the average wavelength of typical asphalt pavement is investigated. A set of mixture designs of exposed aggregate concrete with three maximum-sized coarse aggregates, and three amounts of coarse aggregate are used. The average wavelengths are measured to find the mixture design needed to produce equal levels of wavelength as typical asphalt pavement. RESULTS : With a cement content of 420 kg/m3 and fine aggregate modulus of 30%, the number of exposed aggregates was 48, and the shortest texture depth provided a wavelength of 4.2 mm. According to the number of exposed aggregates, the exposed aggregate concrete pavement could be rendered low-noise, because its wavelength was similar to that of asphalt pavement ranging from 3.9 to 4.4 mm. CONCLUSIONS : Selection of appropriate maximum sizes and the amount of coarse aggregates for exposed aggregate concrete pavement can produce a wavelength texture closely resembling that of asphalt pavement. Therefore, the noise level of exposed aggregate concrete pavement can be reduced with an appropriate maximum size and the amount of coarse aggregates are employed.

PURPOSES : In Korea, concrete pavements with transverse tining, which have excellent skid resistance, have been mainly constructed to secure road bearing capacity and safety. However, transverse tining has higher noise level of approximately 4-5 dB(A) compared with asphalt pavement. As a method to determine low-noise characteristics of concrete pavements, the fine-size exposed aggregate concrete pavement (EACP) has been studied in Korea and abroad. The surface of EACPs consists of exposed coarse aggregates and 2-3 mm removal surface mortar. EACPs have the advantages of maintaining low-noise and adequate skid-resistance levels during the performance period. Although EACPs have been widely studied to reduce noise, quantitative noise analysis with various paving methods has not been performed owing to differences in mixture proportioning, construction conditions, environmental conditions, and measurement methods. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the low-noise characteristics of fine-size EACPs by comparing noise with various paving methods, including concrete and asphalt pavements. METHODS: In this study, noise data were collected to quantitatively analyze the low-noise characteristics of EACPs compared with various paving methods such as transverse tining, longitudinal tining, SMA, and HMA. RESULTS: The evaluation of the low-noise characteristics of EACPs compared with transverse tining showed that the relative noise of 13 mm EACP with transverse tining was reduced by approximately 2% at 60 km/h, 4% at 80 km/h, and 5% at 100 km/h. The relative noise of 10 mm EACP with transverse tining was reduced to 3%, 7%, and 8% at 50 km/h, 80 km/h, and 100 km/h, respectively. In addition, it was confirmed that the noise of 10 mm EACP was similar to that of asphalt pavement. CONCLUSIONS : It was confirmed that EACP using 10 mm coarse aggregates generates lower noise than that using 13 mm coarse aggregates. Therefore, the use of coarse aggregates smaller than 10 mm needs to be considered to improve the low-noise effect of EACP.

In recent years, there have been applied methods for minimizing noise by adjusting the method of installing soundproof walls, soundproof tunnels, soundproofing rims, environmental facilities, etc., and the shape of the surface texture of tire treads and packaging materials for the purpose of reducing road noise. Low noise pavement methods such as rubber asphalt (CRM), open graded asphalt concrete (OGAC), permeable Friction Courses (PFC), open graded friction courses (OGFC) and porous asphalt have been applied to reduce road noise. Especially, porous pavement is the most widely used low noise pavement with porous structure, which can reduce noise and drain water through continuous void of pavement. On the other hand, porous asphalt pavement has problems such as reduction of noise reduction effect and difficulty of road surface management due to void closing and increase of construction cost. The purpose of this study is to develop ultra-thin layer hot mix asphalt pavement method which maximizes road noise reduction effect by surface micro voids (Recover asphalt pavement) to improve void clogging of present porous pavement method. For this study, maximum size 5mm aggregate and cationic-treated fiber reinforced asphalt modifier (CSM) were used. The Marshall design method was applied grain-size distribution curve was based on SMA mix design. Marshall test, TSR, MMLS3 test and Hamburg test were carried out to evaluate the mechanical properties of ultra -thin layered asphalt pavement method with surface micro voids. Also, the effect of road noise reduction was evaluated through field application in urban area.

In contemporary society, vibration and noise in the road nearby buildings have become social problems as vehicles operation has increased. Especially, in the case of the building used to art performance, available suitability of the building is tested by the indoor noise class. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is the measurement of the structure-borne noise of Seoul Art Center nearby Umyeonsan tunnel and analyzing the effects of countermeasure to it. To measure the effects of countermeasure, not only structure-borne noise is measured, but also the vibration is measured, before and after the construction of pavement using pad and porous asphalt. Consequently, the sound pressure level in art center 1st floor is reduced after mat pavement method, structure-borne noise that was high in 25Hz wide-band before pavement decreased regardless of experimental vehicle's velocity. Using porous asphalt pavement the noise was reduced about 3 dB(A).

PURPOSES : In this study, noise reduction effect of a two-layer porous asphalt pavement was investigated through site measurement and computer simulation. METHODS: To examine noise reduction effect, a 3 km long quiet pavement was installed by removing previous normal pavement, which had a rather low porosity. The studied site was a high-rise apartment building surrounded by the quiet pavement and Seoul ring road with heavy traffic volume, indicating relatively high background noise. RESULTS: The measurement result before and after installing the quiet pavement showed a noise reduction effect of 4.3 dB(A) at a distance of 7.5 m from the road. After validating the accuracy of simulation using SoundPLAN, the reduction in SPL(sound pressure level) at the facades by the quiet pavement was predicted by considering five different road conditions generating traffic noise from each road or in the combination of the quiet pavement and Seoul ring road. In the case of no noise from Seoul ring road, noise reduction at the facades was 4.2 dB(A) on average for 702 housing units. With background noise from Seoul ring road, however, the average SPL decreased to 2.0 dB(A). Regarding subjective response of noise, the number of housing units with a noise reduction of over 3 dB(A) was 229 out of 706 units (approximately 32%). For 77 housing units, the noise reduction was between 1~3 dB(A), while it was less than 1 dB(A) for 400 housing units. CONCLUSIONS: The overall result indicates that the quiet pavement is useful to reduce noise evenly at low and high floors compared to noise barriers, especially in the urban situation where background noise is low.

PURPOSES : Recently, attempts have been made to evaluate tire-pavement noise based on a measure of Mean Profile Depth (MPD). However, equivalent values of MPD appear to correspond to different levels of tire-pavement noise, which indicates that other factors such as texture wavelength need to be included to improve the accuracy of noise prediction. A single index to represent texture wavelength is proposed in this study. A consistent relationship between tire-pavement noise and texture wavelength on asphalt concrete pavement is observed. METHODS: Profile data and tire-pavement noise data were collected from a number of expressway sections in Korea. In addition, texture wavelength was defined by a Peak Number (PN), which was calculated using profile data. Statistical analysis was performed to find the relationship between the PN and tire-pavement noise. RESULTS: As a result of this study, a linear relationship between PN and tire-pavement noise is observed on asphalt concrete pavement. CONCLUSIONS: Tire-pavement noise on asphalt concrete pavement can be predicted from PN information.

PURPOSES : The purpose of this study is to eliminate the noise of the vehicle after measuring the friction noise obtained from the NCPX (Noble Close ProXimity) method. The pure friction noise between the tire and road pavement could be determined from filtering the compositeness of sound and the influence of the vehicle noise. METHODS: The noise magnitude could be determined by analyzing the sound pressure level (SPL) and sound power level (PWL) along with the noise frequency of a FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) analysis as well as CPB (Constant Percentage Bandwidth) analysis. RESULTS: When the test for measuring the friction noise originated somewhere between tire and road pavement is performed with NCPX method, it must be fulfilled by attaching the surface microphone near the tire. In this condition, the surface microphone can measure the friction noise occurred at between tire and pavement, the chassis noise from the engine and power transfer units, the fluctuating aerodynamic noise, and the turbulence noise directly affected to the surface microphone. By using the NCPX method, the noise occurred at the vehicle must be eliminated for measuring the friction noise between tire and pavement from the traffic noise. CONCLUSIONS: The vehicle's testing engine noise depends on the vehicle and road types. The effect of vehicle's engine noise is less than the friction noise occurred at between tire and pavement at less than 1% effect.