About The Rolling Resistance Trailer And Parameters Influencing Rolling Resistance

The issue of global warming by an excessive amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere is a hot topic and the consequences for man and environment become more and more clear. Road transportation plays a significant role in CO2 emission and unlike other sectors, its emission has even increased the last years. To stop this trend, different measures may be taken: e.g. tackling traffic congestion, lowering the consumption of the vehicles… Many other parameters influence CO2 emission by transportation: e.g. tyre, vehicle and road characteristics… In this paper the influence of the road surface is investigated with a “quarter-car” trailer, suitable to measure rolling resistance with a car tyre on different road surface types. Texture measurements with a laser profilometer are performed to examine the correlation between rolling resistance and texture. The impacts of different parameters are investigated: repeatability over short and long time, speed, wind, tyre inflation pressure, tyre load, tyre type … Some rough coast down measurements are performed to compare with the trailer method. By gaining more knowledge about this topic, more environmental friendly and sustainable road infrastructure may be developed and implemented. This is expected to be an important tool for policy makers in their fight against CO2 emission.