Measurement of roadway roughness and automobile ride acceleration spectra

The present study is designed to support an overall program for the evaluation and establishment of ride quality criteria in transportation systems. This report, which is restricted to the automobile, outlines the procedures and equipment employed to measure, record, and analyze automotive vibrations and highway or roadway roughness. Detailed automobile vibration responses and corresponding roadway roughness have been measured and recorded here for 20 different roadway sections which are typical of those found in the Austin - Travis County, Texas, area. Our highway roughness models are also compared to some of the roughness models found in the literature.