Noise pollution is a growing concern in the United States and other countries. While there are many sources of noise, traffic noise is a major portion of total noise in the environment. A major component of traffic noiseis the sound generated by the interaction of tires with the roadway. At high speeds, (>30 miles/hr) tire/pavement noise overshadows the noise from other sources in the vehicle. This paper presents a novel sound propagation and generation modeling technique that can be used in roadway applications including environmental impact studies of roadways and other noise sources, development of noise maps, and barrier design etc. The model also has capability of simulating generation of sound. The model is based on one of the most efficient computational fluid dynamic techniques, the Lattice Boltzmann (LB) method. Unlike existing wave propagation models, this modelsimulates air pressure fluctuations (i.e., sound waves) at the tire/pavement interface by solving the Navier-Stokes equations for air. The details of the LB method and its validation using analytical solutions and laboratory measurements have been given. Furthermore, several example applications of LB method for sound propagation as well as sound generation problems have been presented.
Samenvatting