A Study on Evaluation and Sustainability of Noise Reduction Pavement in Heavy Snow Region

摘要

Porous asphalt pavement can improve driving safety as it drains surface water and reduces or absorbs road traffic noise by surface voids and irregularities. Therefore, this pavement has lately found a wide application in Japan. However, in Hokkaido, a heavy-snow region, the durability of the porous asphalt pavement has come into question and the sustainability of noise reduction effect has become a problem. Besides, because of the limited number of RAC (Road Acoustic Checker) vehicles for determining noise reduction effect in the country, a simplified measurement method has been called for. In this study, full-scale pavements with different void ratios and binder types were built on an actual road and investigations were carried out on the effect and evaluation of road traffic noise reduction. For measurement of road traffic noise, the RAC vehicle and NISAC (Normal Incidence Sound Absorption Coefficient) measuring device using the tube method were applied. For evaluation of the sustainability of the effect of road traffic noise reduction, a survey research was carried out on road traffic noise and permeability of the porous asphalt pavement. In this paper, we report that the effect of road traffic noise reduction is highly correlated with surface irregularities and that the pavement sustainability improves with increasing void ratio. And the noise absorption effect is highly correlated with the permeability of the porous asphalt pavement. Finally, we suggest that the NISAC measuring device can be applied as a nondestructive method in the field.