Adhesion Characteristics of Tire-Asphalt Pavement Interface Based on a Proposed Tire Hydroplaning Model

Abstract

In order to study the adhesion between tire and asphalt pavement, we established a finite element model of a hydroplaning, inflatable, patterned tire based on the coupled Eulerian–Lagrangian method and then validated the model’s applicability. We numerically calculated tire-pavement adhesion curves for three types of pavement: asphalt concrete (AC), stone mastic asphalt (SMA), and open-graded friction course (OGFC). In accordance with adhesion characteristic theory with regard to tires and asphalt pavements, we analyzed the influential factors that affect the adhesion characteristics of the tire-asphalt pavement interface in an antilock braking system and under damp conditions. The results show that the adhesion between tire and pavement is related to the movement of the tire. In this study, the longitudinal adhesion coefficient for the tire-pavement interface initially increased with an increase in the slip rate and then decreased. Once the slip rate was about 20 percent, the longitudinal adhesion reached its maximum value. In addition, we found that a deep surface macrotexture improved the hydroplaning speed of the tire when the water film was not too thick and the inflation pressure was high. Also, dry pavement led to better adhesion than a wet state in terms of specific mean profile depth. With the same water film thickness, the adhesion coefficient decreased with an increase in driving velocity. The OGFC pavement offered better skid resistance than both AC pavement and SMA pavement.