In September 2009 a new EU project on innovative noise reducing road pavements started. Representatives from twelve European research institutes and companies met for a kickoff meeting at the Belgian Road Research Laboratory (BRRC). BRRC has the role to coordinate this new project which has been named PERSUADE, an abbreviation for ”Poroelastic Road Surface: an innovation to avoid damages to the environment”.
Concept and purpose
The main purpose of PERSUADE is to develop and test new road pavements with very high noise-reducing effect. The pavements
will be based on an aggregate of rubber material instead of the traditional stone aggregates; they will also be designed with a high proportion of air voids. The air voids will make the pavement porous,
which in combination with the elastic rubber granules will make it flexible, both of which contribute to reduce noise from the tyre/road contact. By using rubber granulate from used vehicle tyres, the environmental aim of the project is two-fold: to reduce noise from road traffic and at the same time to give a considerable amount of used tyres in Europe a second lifecycle. The final mixtures produced in PERSUADE might include also a certain amount of sand or stone aggregate; mainly to increase friction. The EU Commission and its project reviewers found this so interesting that a support of 3.4 million euros was obtained for this project in hard competition with other project proposals.
The poroelastic road surface is originally a Swedish invention from the 1970s which was tried in Sweden in the 1980s, but without success. The Japanese adopted the concept in the 1990s and started omprehensive research which still goes on after about 15 years. In 2000–2005 VTI conducted a project, sponsored mainly by Vinnova, which was similar to PERSUADE but was of a much smaller scale [1]. This project ended with a test of three poroelastic materials on a street in Stockholm, which failed due to break-up of the too weak asphalt under the rubber surface. Before this happened, people were enthusiastic about the dramatic noise reduction experienced on the street. The experience from the VTI and the Japanese projects now constitute the basic level from which PERSUADE starts. When the Swedish and Japanese activities were most intensive, in 2000–2005, several common workshops were organized and one or two study trips were made each year; these continued annually after 2005. In 2005 also people from the Danish Road Institute took part in a study tour to Japan [2]. The purpose of the PERSUADE project is to develop and test poroelastic materials, first in the laboratories, later on roads under traffic. The pavements shall provide substantial noise reduction and acceptable operation over a reasonable lifetime, while at the same time, meet requirements on friction and other traffic safety issues. Some might suspect that a flexible pavement might cause much higher rolling resistance and thus energy consumption and CO2 emissions but, in fact, it is hoped that low losses in the material will provide similar rolling resistance as conventional asphalt, and in the best case even reduce the rolling resistance.
In the first instance, the poroelastic road surfaces will primarily be considered for use on ”black spots”, which is the term used for limited areas where noise exposure is very high, and where it is not possible or desirable to use noise barriers etc.
Performing the project
The project will run for six years. This is unusually long for an EU project but makes it possible in the first years to work on development
and testing of new materials in the laboratory after which full-scale tests of the new pavements will be carried out. It is the intention to test pavements in five European countries, including Denmark and |
|
Overview of poroelastic road surface test sections laid in Stockholm in 2004, which gave tyre/road noise reductions of 10 dB(A) [1]. In the winter, the old asphalt pavement onto which the rubber pavement was glued separated from a lower asphalt layer, forcing the experiment to finish.
Sweden. The materials and the laying processes might vary between the countries and in Sweden special concerns apply for severe winter conditions. A comprehensive measuring programme will be set up which will include noise, friction, rolling resistance, etc. Furthermore, cost-benefit analyses will be carried out where poroelastic road surfaces will be compared to other ”traditional” types of noise reduction measures, such as façade insulation and ”conventional”
noise-reducing pavements. Life cycle analyses will also be included.
From Denmark, the Road Directorate, Danish Road Institute and NCC Roads will take part in the PERSUADE project and from Sweden the partner is VTI. Recently, a state-of-the-art report was prepared by
VTI and BRRC [3], which can be downloaded from the project website. The PERSUADE website will present the results from the project and some other relevant information and will be updated frequently
during the entire project.
/Emine Celik Christensen, Danish Road Directorate, Denmark
Hans Bendtsen, Danish Road Directorate, Danish Road Institute DRI,
Ulf Sandberg, VTI, Sweden
References
1. Sandberg, Ulf; Kalman, Björn (2005): "The Poroelastic Road Surface – Results of an Ex-periment in Stockholm". Proceedings of the Forum
Acusticum 2005 conference in Budapest, Hungary, August 2005.
2. "Noise reducing pavements in Japan. Study Tour Report". Notat 31, 2005. Road Directorate, Danish Road Institute. See www.vd.dk3. Sandberg, Ulf; Goubert, Luc; Biligiri, Krishna; Kalman, Björn (2010): "State-of-the-art regarding poroelastic road surfaces". Deliverable
D8.1, available for download on the PERSUADE.
Contact:
Hans Bendtsen
Read more:
persuade.fehrl.org |
