The Traffic Accident Reconstruction Origin -ARnews-

Re: What causes the screeching noise from skidding tires?

Andrew Rich (ASRich@CSI.COM)
Sun, 3 Aug 1997 07:50:34 -0400 (EDT)

More technical answers exist to your question than the one I write here. You need to explain to your trainee the conservation of energy. That is, energy cannot be created or destroyed, but rather converted from one form to another. When a car skids to a stop its kinetic energy is converted into other forms of energy. The one you see most is the visible skid mark which manifests some of the thermal energy (but not all) that is produced. One of the others is vibration which causes sound waves and produces the screeching you hear. Think of a radio speaker. It works by vibrating at a certain frequency to reproduce sound. This is what the interaction of the tire-roadway surface is doing to produce the screech.

Andrew Rich
ASRich@CSI.COM

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