Abstract

In recent years different innovative noise reducing road surfaces have been developed that either use asphalt or concrete, e.g. single or double layer porous asphalt, noise-reducing stone mastic asphalt, noise-reducing thin layers, surface treated concrete or exposed aggregate cement concrete. The noise reduction potential of such pavements could vary between 1 and 6dB(A) in comparison with conventional asphalt concrete surfaces depending on the road surface type and on its condition. In the context of a cooperation of BMVIT (Federal Ministry of Transport, Innovation and Technology of Austria), ASFINAG (Austrian Motorway Company), ISTU (Institute for Road Construction and Road Maintenance of the Vienna University of Technology) together with Heller Ingenieurgesellschaft mbH (Vienna) and representatives of the road construction industry, different innovative surface layer types have been examined for the first time in Austria under the same ambient conditions
regarding to their noise characteristics, their durability and their influence on road safety compared with conventionally used surface layer types (stone mastic asphalt and asphalt concrete). The test section consists of altogether 8 different test fields with the surface layer types noise-reducing stone mastic asphalt, single and double layer porous asphalt and two reference surfaces. Analysing the first noise measurement results the clearly noise related advantage of porous asphalt surface layers both related to the overall traffic (SPB- index) and the individual vehicle categories could be shown. In comparison with the examined asphalt concrete surface layer they perform about 6-8dB(A) lower noise levels. The examined low noise stone mastic asphalt layers exhibit about 2–4dB(A) higher passing-by noise levels than the porous surface layer types.

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