A Hybrid Approach to Model the Temperature Effect in Tire Forces and Moments 2017-01-9676

Tire is an integral part of any vehicle which provides contact between the vehicle and the surface on which it moves. Forces and moments generated at the tire-road interaction imparts stability and control of motion to the vehicle. These forces and moments are functions of many variables such as slip, slip angle, contact pressure, inflation pressure, coefficient of friction, temperature, etc. This paper deals with the effect of temperature on the lateral force, the longitudinal force and the self-aligning moment. The analysis is done at different tire surface temperatures such as 20°C, 40°C, and 60°C. Since the experimental set up with the mounted tire is complex and expensive, we use a hybrid approach in which we take the results from the experiments done by the researchers on a sample piece of tire rubber at various temperatures. Then, we do the steady state analysis in ABAQUS considering the variation of coefficient of friction, slip speed and the elastic modulus of rubber with temperature. The steady state numerical results from ABAQUS at different surface temperatures are compared with the modified PAC2002 tire model to capture the temperature effect. After validating the variations of steady state forces and moments from ABAQUS with the modified PAC2002, we use these steady state tire models to do the transient analysis in order to capture the effect of temperature on the transient response of tire forces and moments for different driving conditions of acceleration, braking and double lane change using MSC ADAMS/CAR.