Development of Acoustical Prediction Model for Asphalt Pavements Using Grey System Approach

Traffic noise resulted from various transportation vehicles is normally the most significant sources of noise in the environment of urban areas. Previous research results have shown that traffic noise is mainly generated from tire/road noise for high velocity vehicles. For traffic noise assessment, the controlling factors for the acoustical properties and the tire/road noise on asphalt pavements are not known very well, such as vehicle categories, tire types and material characteristics of pavement on field. In addition, many of the existing prediction models for acoustical properties and traffic noise still have application limitations and accuracy problems. Acoustical properties and tire/road noise are measured from laboratory and field tests conducted in this study. The grey model with Fourier residual correction is introduced to predict normal incidence sound absorption coefficient and tire/road noise. The applicability of developed prediction models is further evaluated by statistical analysis and Absolute Mean Error (AME). The evaluation results confirming the models are useful and accurate.