UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies

The report describes a series of comparative on-board sound intensity (OBSI) tests performed on 19 different pavement sections by three different teams and vehicles using five different tires to determine variations among them for noise testing. The testing considered the tires’ rubber durometer hardness, tread depth, and accumulated mileage, and measured sound levels using the on-board sound intensity method. The results of these measurements are compared with similar testing performed earlier, and showed that the average differences measured by the teams were smaller and the maximum OBSI ranges were larger than those made in earlier testing.