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An indoor road-wheel facility at the Technical University of Gdańsk was used to study the noise emission from a variety of tires with different tread patterns. The tires were run both on a smooth steel drum and a drum covered by a replica road surface. All tread patterns were hand-cut to generate several families of simple treads with regular pitch for a systematic study of how groove design influences noise. Most of the observed, tread influenced phenomena could be explained by generation mechanisms such as radial vibrations induced by tread block impact, pocket air pumping and pipe resonances in the grooves. For instance, it was observed that, when speed increases, sooner or later the tread block impact frequency will coincide with the pipe resonance frequency and then generate excessive noise at that speed.

For more than a century, pneumatic (air-inflated) tires have totally dominated the market for road vehicle tires. However, in the recent two decades, interest has grown in developing airless tires. Some of the authors were involved in design of an early version in composite material 15-30 years ago for passenger cars. Presently, the EU project LEON-T (Low particle Emissions and lOw Noise Tyres) includes a part in which prototypes for innovative heavy goods vehicle (HGV) tires are developed, with the main purpose to reduce noise emission by 6 dB. To reduce noise that much it is believed that airless tires are needed. A special challenge is to get a durable design able to carry typical truck tire loads. This paper introduces the principal design of airless tires. Airless tire prototypes are intended to be developed by partner Euroturbine, in cooperation with mainly Applus+ IDIADA, VTI and subcontractor Lightness by Design.