The Center for Tire Research (CenTiRe) is pleased to announce the completion of “Multiscale Dynamic Assessment of Airborne Microplastic Emissions in Tire Wear Particles,” a three-year research project at Virginia Tech that concluded recently.

As the transportation industry works to better understand emissions beyond the tailpipe, particles generated by tire wear are an important area of investigation. This project examined how those particles become airborne and developed tools to estimate emissions—from an individual vehicle to an entire city’s road network.

The team combined controlled indoor testing, on-road measurements at Virginia Smart Roads, detailed particle analysis, and traffic modeling. Together, these approaches helped researchers distinguish tire wear particles from other airborne material and evaluate how driving conditions and vehicle operation influence emissions.

The project delivered several valuable resources for future research and industry use:

• A practical measurement protocol to support consistent sampling and analysis of airborne tire and road wear particles.
• Indoor and outdoor datasets documenting emissions under a range of driving conditions.
• An improved particle identification method to better distinguish tire wear particles within collected samples.
• A modeling tool that combines traffic patterns and vehicle operating conditions to estimate airborne tire wear emissions across road networks.

These resources provide a stronger foundation for understanding tire wear emissions and evaluating potential strategies to reduce them. They also demonstrate the value of connecting laboratory research with real-world testing and transportation modeling.

CenTiRe extends its sincere thanks to Virginia Tech Faculty principal investigators Dr. Hosein Foroutan and Dr. Hesham A. Rakha, and graduate student researcher Salahuddin Setu for their dedication and sustained efforts throughout this project.

We also appreciate the CenTiRe industry mentors who provided guidance throughout the research, and the facilities and supporting programs that enabled the testing and analysis.

This project reflects CenTiRe’s commitment to bringing university researchers and industry together to address important challenges in tire science and sustainability.