Estimate non-Gaussian road roughness from international roughness index

Gaussian model is commonly used to characterize road roughness, while field measured data is usually non-Gaussian. A new method based on the amplitude modulation and International Roughness Index is proposed in this paper to estimate non-Gaussian road roughness. A modified Gamma distribution is proposed to describe the International Roughness Index and to create the amplitude modulation signal. To ensure that the high kurtosis of the amplitude-modulated non-Gaussian profile is correctly transferred to the vehicle response, the method is further developed to fulfill the specifications for the fatigue damage spectrum by controlling the spectral content of the amplitude modulation signal. Herein, a Gaussian amplitude modulation signal with a cutoff frequency is firstly generated, and then converted to a modified Gamma distribution amplitude modulation signal based on the cumulative distribution function transform. Field data are used to verify the proposed method. The results show that a good match is obtained between the estimated and measured non-Gaussian road roughness. The estimated International Roughness Index and fatigue damage potential of vehicle response are well represented using the proposed method.