Tire Wear Emissions by Highways: Impact of Season and Surface Type

Jason Miech, Pierre Herckes, MATTHEW FRASER, Arizona State University

     Abstract Number: 134
     Working Group: Urban Aerosols

Abstract
With the increasing number of electric vehicles taking to the roads, the impact of tailpipe emissions on air quality will decrease, while resuspended road dust, and brake/tire wear will become more significant. This study seeks to quantify PM₁₀ emissions from tire wear under a range of real highway conditions with measurements across different seasons and roadway surface type. To specifically quantify tire wear particles, PM₁₀ filter samples were collected on highway overpasses and analyzed for tire wear markers such as benzothiazoles and phenylenediamines using GC-MS. To account for mixing and transport between the highway surface and the overpass, commercial road flares, which emit strontium, were burned on the highway surface to act as a tracer from a line source, with ambient Sr measured by ICP-MS. Additional factors such as wind speed and direction, and volume and composition of traffic were also measured. To convert between tire marker and tire wear we collected and analyzed source samples from a variety of passenger and truck tires and used the traffic composition to develop a weighted average composition value for the conversion. The final calculated PM₁₀ tire wear emission rates will be compared to emission models calculating PM₁₀ tire wear emission rates.