Road too smooth?
Very smooth roads can cause an apparent increase in the roughness of the ride in cars, the latest issue of the Road Research Unit's newsletter reports. An 80 rn.p.h. highway in South Africa was constructed to very close surface tolerances, yet motorists cot ained of vibrations and apparently rough rides on it. After considerable research, the road authorities concluded that the superior smoothness of the road and the absence of the random unevenness found on other roads made motorists more aware of the imperfections
in their vehicles’ wheels and tyres. The superior evenness might also be responsible for increased vibration, the authorities reported, because the surface did not exert any dampening effect on the wheels and tyres by “random roughness input” to the suspension. Analysis of the vibrations showed that they nearly all coincided in frequency with the circumference of the wheels of the vehicle concerned: in other words it was the wheel or tyre which was causing the trouble not the road.
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Bibliographic details
Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32678, 6 August 1971, Page 7
Word Count
166Road too smooth? Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32678, 6 August 1971, Page 7
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Acknowledgements
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