A synthesized airless tyre traffic sound scenario for health impact assessment

Within the LEON-T project, a composite wheel is being developed that is aimed to reduce noise from the tyre-road interaction by removing the air filled cavity entirely and by allowing the tread belt be permeable, thus reducing air pressure build-up in the contact patch. Parallel to the developement of the composite "airless tyre" the potential health impact from reducing noise by adopting such a composite wheel has been investigated by synthesizing the sound of a composite wheel. The synthesized sound has then been used to create different traffic flow scenarios used for laboratory studies of effects on sleep from noise. Results indicate positive effects on health through less sleep disturbance from composite wheel noise as compared to ordinary tyre noise. This paper describes the synthesis process and the scenarios used for the sleep laboratory experiments.