Surface Retexturing to Reduce Tire–Road Noise for Existing Concrete Pavements

A portion of I-76 near Akron, Ohio, was reconstructed by the Ohio Department of Transportation with concrete pavement to replace the previous asphalt surface. During reconstruction, the concrete surface was textured with random transverse grooves. After construction, residents living in the project area as far as 800 m (2,600 ft) from the roadway perceived an undesirable increase in noise level, which they attributed to the new concrete pavement in the reconstruction project. Therefore, another project was initiated to retexture the pavement surface by diamond grinding. The transverse grooves were replaced with longitudinal grooves. Traffic noise measurements were made before and after grinding at five sites in the project area, at distances of 7.5 m (24.6 ft) and 15 m (49.2 ft) from the center of the near travel lane. The average reduction in the A-frequency–weighted broadband noise levels at 7.5 m (24.6 ft) was 3.5 dB, and the average reduction at 15m (49.2 ft) was 3.1 dB. Spectrum analysis showed that the greatest reduction in noise occurred at frequencies above 1 kHz and that the retexturing had little to no effect on frequencies less than 200 Hz.