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A tire may be one of the most critical and complex components in vehicle dynamics and road loads analyses because it serves as the only interface between the road surface and the vehicle. Extensive research and development activities about vehicle dynamics and tire models have been published in the past decades, but it is still not clear about the applications and parameter identification associated with all of these tire models. In this literature review study, various published tire models used for vehicle dynamics and road loads analyses are compared in terms of their modeling approaches, applications and parameters identification process and methodologies. It is hoped that the summary of this literature review work can help clarify and guide the future research and development direction about tire modeling.

In this paper, we study the sensitivity of a vehicle impact harshness (IH) performance to the suspension bushing rates. A mid-sized uni-body SUV is selected for this study, with the acceleration responses at the driver seat track and the steering wheel as objective functions. A sensitivity study is conducted using an ADAMS full vehicle model including a tire model and flexible body structure representation over an IH event. The study resulted in the identification of key bushings that affect the IH performance and its sensitivity to the bushing rates. Based on the results, we came-up with an “optimal” bushing set that minimizes impact harshness, which was subjectively verified to result in significant improvement in IH.