Validation of a Steady-State Transport Analysis for Rolling Treaded Tires

Abstract

Abstract A new computational procedure for the analysis of treaded tires under conditions of steady-state rolling has been recently developed. As with well-known procedures for axisymmetric structures, the new procedure uses a mixed Eulerian/Lagrangian kinematic description in which rigid body rotation is described in an Eulerian manner and the deformation is described in a Lagrangian manner. This work discusses the industrial and historical context of the procedure, provides an overview of the technology, reviews experimental validation targets, and compares against better-established procedures. The new procedure successfully predicts the distributions of normal, lateral, and longitudinal stress in several different cases. A limitation of the new procedure is that solution accuracy can degrade, particularly in the longitudinal stress, when the angular extent of the base pitch sector is too large. When applied in nontreaded cases, the new procedure produces results consistent with established procedures such as Lagrangian rolling and conventional steady-state transport for axisymmetric structures. The main benefits of the new procedure are (1) computational efficiency and (2) the ability to include the full geometry of treaded tires.