Tyre dust pollution

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jaap
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Re: Tyre dust pollution

Post by jaap » Mon Jul 06, 2020 8:18 am

Boustrophedon wrote:
Mon Jul 06, 2020 7:37 am
Martin Y wrote:
Sun Jul 05, 2020 12:20 pm
I wondered about their suggestions of using porous tarmac to absorb particulates for later disposal. They presumably mean the surface getting dug up and replaced. Wonder how much tyre debris a porous road surface can absorb before it stops being porous and what the cost (in price and pollution) would be of replacing the road surface every x years. Roadsweepers which clean along kerbs and suck debris out of drain gulleys are a practical necessity to keep drains working, but I'd like to see some wet-finger-in-the-air numbers comparing the benefit of more sweeping against the cost of the roadsweeper trucks spending more time on the road.
Experiments on self draining roads with subsurface drainage by Shell and others, in the 70s established that porous tarmac clogged too quickly to be useful on roads, it does find use in carparks and similar places with low actual driving usage.
In the Netherlands we've been using ZOAB ("zeer open asfalt beton", which literally translates as very open asphalt concrete) for years on many motorways. It is mostly for reducing spray in the rain and for reducing road noise. It is not used on other roads though, presumably due to cost and maintenance. I don't know about its interaction with tyre particles.

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Re: Tyre dust pollution

Post by lpm » Mon Jul 06, 2020 8:48 am

Boustrophedon wrote:
Sun Jul 05, 2020 11:11 am
Driving the family car gently on mainly country roads, means that I use the brakes so little, the discs are rusting away. I shall have to replace them for the MOT. The tyres show no wear after a year either.
Yes.

Instead of fussing about trivial little differences in rubber compounds or brake dust, just cut the speed limit from 30 to 20 in all urban areas.
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bmforre
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Re: Tyre dust pollution

Post by bmforre » Mon Jul 06, 2020 9:28 am

lpm wrote:
Mon Jul 06, 2020 8:48 am
Instead of fussing about trivial little differences in rubber compounds or brake dust, just cut the speed limit from 30 to 20 in all urban areas.
You mean kilometer pr hour or miles per hour?

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lpm
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Re: Tyre dust pollution

Post by lpm » Mon Jul 06, 2020 9:36 am

Get away with your communist European metric system.

So what if you can divide by 10 easily, our system has easily remembered units like 5,760 feet to a mile and 14 ounces to a pound.
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Re: Tyre dust pollution

Post by bmforre » Mon Jul 06, 2020 9:43 am

lpm wrote:
Mon Jul 06, 2020 9:36 am
... our system has easily remembered units like 5,760 feet to a mile and 14 ounces to a pound.
And different gallons in the UK and the US.

Strictly, there are 5280 feet to a mile. You have an alternative distance. Got it from your avatar?

And 16 ounces to a pound. Don't confuse the dry with the liquid ones.
Last edited by bmforre on Mon Jul 06, 2020 9:55 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Tyre dust pollution

Post by lpm » Mon Jul 06, 2020 9:53 am

bmforre wrote:
Mon Jul 06, 2020 9:43 am
And different gallons in the UK and the US.
Which means British cars, such as the renowned Austin Metro, get better mpg than American cars.
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Re: Tyre dust pollution

Post by bmforre » Mon Jul 06, 2020 9:58 am

lpm wrote:
Mon Jul 06, 2020 9:53 am
bmforre wrote:
Mon Jul 06, 2020 9:43 am
And different gallons in the UK and the US.
Which means British cars, such as the renowned Austin Metro, get better mpg than American cars.
Not when you fill them up in the US.

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Re: Tyre dust pollution

Post by dyqik » Mon Jul 06, 2020 1:51 pm

Boustrophedon wrote:
Mon Jul 06, 2020 7:32 am
dyqik wrote:
Sun Jul 05, 2020 11:35 am


The rear brake pads on our Prius last about 50k miles, while the front ones lasted 95k. Some owners have reported the front brake pads lasting 220k miles.

The rear brakes are used so infrequently that the calipers rust and freeze onto the discs every 4 years or so, requiring new pads, discs and calipers.
Indeed. The old Alfasud had the handbrake on the front wheels, many owners drove a long way before discovering at MOT time that the rear brakes were not working at all.

The problem with modern front wheel drive cars is that the majority of the weight is over the front wheels, particularly in small hatchbacks, and the EU construction and use directives mandate that the rear wheels must never lock up before the front (even in the event of ABS failure.) This can result in the rear brakes doing virtually nothing. I have seen it argued that given the marginal effect that rear brakes have on stopping distance, that the money spent on fitting them would better be spent improving the front brakes instead and leaving the rear ones off entirely, but the law does not allow this.
On the Prius this is a bit less of an issue, as the battery pack is under the rear seat, just in front of the spare wheel well, so there is some weight on the rear even with empty back seats and trunk*. There are instructions in the manual to put the transmission in Neutral and brake to a halt once a month, but who RTFMs?

*My car speaks American.

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Re: Tyre dust pollution

Post by Gfamily » Mon Jul 06, 2020 2:05 pm

A not uncommon claim from swivel-eyed motorists on the old cycling usenet groups was that "particulate pollution from cycling is far worse than from driving" because of the wearing down of bicycle brake pads and tyres.
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Re: Tyre dust pollution

Post by Martin Y » Mon Jul 06, 2020 2:36 pm

Gfamily wrote:
Mon Jul 06, 2020 2:05 pm
A not uncommon claim from swivel-eyed motorists on the old cycling usenet groups was that "particulate pollution from cycling is far worse than from driving" because of the wearing down of bicycle brake pads and tyres.
That sounds more than a trifle unhinged. It reminds me though of a rule of thumb I learned from an item back in Mrs Y's Tomorrows World days, which was that the wear to the road varies with the third power of the vehicle's weight. So a 10 ton lorry wears the road surface as much as a thousand 1 ton cars. No, I never knew the provenance of the claim.

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Re: Tyre dust pollution

Post by dyqik » Mon Jul 06, 2020 3:20 pm

Certainly areas where buses and trucks drive around here have serious ripples and cracks compared to routes that buses and trucks don't use. But those routes also have more cars.

One bit nearby was downhill off a bridge to a traffic light - the ABS was triggered by the ripples causing the wheels to skip everytime I had to either stop for the light or turn right* there. They've just resurfaced it, so we'll see how long that last.

And that's not particulates.

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Re: Tyre dust pollution

Post by Martin Y » Mon Jul 06, 2020 6:14 pm

Rings a bell. Corrugation of road surfaces by HGVs may well have been the topic of the item where I picked up that 3rd power idea.

Heavy lorry wheels tend to drop into any small dip and hit its trailing edge hard, which works to extend the original dip but they also rebound out of the dip and then hit hard again some distance beyond, beginning a second dip. This can eventually build up into long corrugated stretches of motorway which are really unpleasant to drive on and ISTR Mrs Y did a piece about some clever idea to solve it, but I have completely forgotten whatever it was.

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Re: Tyre dust pollution

Post by dyqik » Mon Jul 06, 2020 6:45 pm

Martin Y wrote:
Mon Jul 06, 2020 6:14 pm
Rings a bell. Corrugation of road surfaces by HGVs may well have been the topic of the item where I picked up that 3rd power idea.

Heavy lorry wheels tend to drop into any small dip and hit its trailing edge hard, which works to extend the original dip but they also rebound out of the dip and then hit hard again some distance beyond, beginning a second dip. This can eventually build up into long corrugated stretches of motorway which are really unpleasant to drive on and ISTR Mrs Y did a piece about some clever idea to solve it, but I have completely forgotten whatever it was.
That's also how washboarding on unpaved roads happens.

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Re: Tyre dust pollution

Post by Boustrophedon » Tue Jul 07, 2020 9:12 am

Martin Y wrote:
Mon Jul 06, 2020 2:36 pm
Gfamily wrote:
Mon Jul 06, 2020 2:05 pm
A not uncommon claim from swivel-eyed motorists on the old cycling usenet groups was that "particulate pollution from cycling is far worse than from driving" because of the wearing down of bicycle brake pads and tyres.
That sounds more than a trifle unhinged. It reminds me though of a rule of thumb I learned from an item back in Mrs Y's Tomorrows World days, which was that the wear to the road varies with the third power of the vehicle's weight. So a 10 ton lorry wears the road surface as much as a thousand 1 ton cars. No, I never knew the provenance of the claim.
The point contact stress pattern is a hemispherical centered on the load, the volume of that hemisphere at any given stress will have a radius proportional to the load, so the volume of damaged road surface and substrate is proportional to the load cubed. And that is before you take into account the peak shear loads near the point of contact which will be greater if the load is greater and do greater damage. Probably worse that load3
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Re: Tyre dust pollution

Post by Millennie Al » Wed Jul 08, 2020 2:29 am

Martin Y wrote:
Mon Jul 06, 2020 2:36 pm
It reminds me though of a rule of thumb I learned from an item back in Mrs Y's Tomorrows World days, which was that the wear to the road varies with the third power of the vehicle's weight. So a 10 ton lorry wears the road surface as much as a thousand 1 ton cars. No, I never knew the provenance of the claim.
It's actually the fourth power. See https://trl.co.uk/reports/PPR066 page 5.

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Martin Y
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Re: Tyre dust pollution

Post by Martin Y » Wed Jul 08, 2020 9:33 am

Millennie Al wrote:
Wed Jul 08, 2020 2:29 am
Martin Y wrote:
Mon Jul 06, 2020 2:36 pm
It reminds me though of a rule of thumb I learned from an item back in Mrs Y's Tomorrows World days, which was that the wear to the road varies with the third power of the vehicle's weight. So a 10 ton lorry wears the road surface as much as a thousand 1 ton cars. No, I never knew the provenance of the claim.
It's actually the fourth power. See https://trl.co.uk/reports/PPR066 page 5.
That's pretty comprehensive. Thanks. Fourth power of axle load, gosh.

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Re: Tyre dust pollution

Post by Grumble » Wed Jul 15, 2020 9:30 pm

Tyre dust major source of ocean microplastics
https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... SApp_Other
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Re: Tyre dust pollution

Post by Grumble » Thu Jul 16, 2020 5:26 am

I expect a lot of the tyre dust in the sea gets wind blown in, but some presumably gets washed in direct from the road surface. I wonder if there’s anything we can do to clean the run off better? Wastewater processing isn’t geared towards getting rid of microplastics at the moment.

Chemical engineers are on the case but it’s early days
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 4719323654
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