Search Results

A tire enveloping model is described by a “four-ports network” system. A flexible roller contact (FRC) model is proposed, in which both tire geometric filtering effect and tire flexible filtering effect are taken into account. Furthermore, partial loss of contact and the variation of contact length are also considered effectively in this model. In the modelling of automobile vibration systems, because of the influences of tire enveloping properties, the road input could not be original road profile. So an effective road input is proposed which is filtered by the tire. Under different obstacles, tire loads and inflation pressures, the simulations of the effective road input are carried out based on the FRC model. The simulation results show that FRC model can describe tire enveloping properties more effectively than rigid roller contact (RRC) model.

Vehicle handling and stability performances are greatly determined by non-steady state (NSS) tire cornering properties. Analytical derivation of NSS tire cornering models are presented in this paper based on Pacejka's string-concept assumption, in which carcass is assumed to be a stretched string with lateral deformation and lateral relaxation. The lateral inputs of the models are either displacement-based (lateral displacement and yaw angle) or slip-based (slip angle and turn slip). The transient deformations in spatial domain in both longitudinal and lateral directions are obtained directly from geometric relationship of contact patch. The additional self-aligning moment due to longitudinal deformation of contact patch after effect of tire width is considered is also achieved according to geometric relationship of contact patch in longitudinal direction and two transient geometric conditions of contact point.

In this paper, on the basis of the extant semi-empirical tire models of non-steady state with pure yaw angle input and pure side slip angle input, two empirical tire models of non-steady state side slip properties are established, one is pure yaw angle input, the other is pure side slip angle input, and both of them have been verified by test data. These two models can be used to approximately express tire force within low frequency. They have their own advantages, and make up for the disadvantages of existing tire models. They provide more choice for the simulation of vehicle dynamics.

Tire lag property is a basic property of tire dynamics, and it has significant influence on the performance of vehicle dynamics. In distance domain, the side force and moments produced by a massless tire are basically displacement or path frequency dependent, rather than time dependent. In the paper, on the basis of the stretched-string model, the first-order filtering of deflection for the front point of the contact print and the first-order filtering of side force have been introduced. Tire system can be regarded as a first-order linear system under small slip angle. The force response of tire has the characteristics of the responses of first-order linear system under small angle. The relaxation length is an important parameter in studying tire lag property. It decreases with increasing slip angle. It plays an important role in the study of tire transient properties.

In the paper, the Flat Plank Tire Tester of Changchun Automobile Institute is introduced. This paper, according to practical experiences, generalizes some issues in the tire's non-steady state test. In the non-steady state test, it must be assured that the footprint centerline of tire coincides with that of slid platform, which guarantees no sliding motion between tire and slid platform during the movement. Due to tire taper effect and inhomogeneous tire material, when its side slip angle is zero, side force and aligning torque are not zeros, but have initial values. Here two approaches are discussed to eliminate the side force and aligning torque. Besides, other factors in the test are put forward for discussion. Eliminating the interference can obviously improve the test accuracy. This paper also provides test curves of both pure side slip angle input and pure yaw angle input.

The properties of contact patch are key factors for tire modeling. Researchers have paid more attention to the contact patch shape and vertical pressure distribution. Some innovative concepts, such as Local Carcass Camber, have been presented to explain special tire modeling phenomena. For a pragmatic tire model, a concise model structure and fewer parameters are considered as the primary tasks for the modeling. Many empirical tire models, such as the well-known Magic Formula model, would become more complex to achieve satisfactory modeling accuracy, due to increasing number of input variables, so the semi-empirical or semi-physical modeling method becomes more attractive. In this paper, the concept of Tire Carcass Camber is introduced first. Different from Local Carcass Camber, Tire Carcass Camber is an imaginary camber angle caused only by lateral force on the unloaded tire.

To improve the quantitative accuracy of vehicle vibration studies, a roller contact tire model with the geometric filtering concept and a method to determine the effective road input are proposed. Computer simulation with the 13 DOF vehicle model for a light truck, based on two different tire models, and relevant outdoor tests for measuring the vehicle accelerations of both sprung and unsprung masses are presented. Comparisons of test data and simulation results show that the roller contact tire model renders much better simulation accuracy than the single point contact tire model. It is concluded that the roller contact tire model is a powerful concept which acts as a geometric filter, giving a simple method to calculate the enveloping effects of tires and the effective road elevation input.

The objective of this study is to develop a non-steady & non-linear tire model for vehicle dynamic simulation and control for extreme lateral slip condition. This model is provided in a semi-analytical form based on the theoretical non-steady state model, presented at 2nd IAVSD Tyre Conference, Feb. 1997[6]. The tire model is based on a quasi-steady state concept, which generates the dynamic forces and moment according to the dynamic effective slip ratio cooperating with the Unified Semi-Empirical Tire Model for Steady State. Satisfying the theoretical boundary conditions at two sides (lowest & highest) in frequency domain, the tire model is capable of describing the transient force & moment characteristics of tires in higher frequency range, Comparing with the “Linear Approximation” model, presented at 4th AVEC Conference, Sept. 1998[4].

A unified tire model with non-isotropy of friction and arbitrary contact pressure distribution is presented as a foundation to study the key features of a reasonable expression of tire shear force and alignment torque under combined slip conditions. The effects of contact pressure distribution on tire mechanical characteristics are analyzed. A unified semi-empirical tire model with convenience in dynamics simulation is recommended. For determining the model parameters, a series of simple expressions that satisfy the boundary conditions are proposed and a new global fitting method for tire data processing is employed. Based on the improved semi empirical model, the USPA software is developed. This software reduces the modeling time from the tire data to a practical tire model and allows various tire characteristics analyses. Some experimental validations are shown.

In this paper, a sliding mode observer for estimating vehicle slip angle and tire forces is developed. Firstly, the sliding mode observer design approach is presented. A system damping is included in the sliding mode observer to speed the observer convergence and to decrease the observer chattering. Secondly, the sliding mode observer for vehicle states is developed based on a 7 DOF embedded vehicle model with a nonlinear tire model ‘UniTire’. In addition, since the tire lateral stiffness is sensitive to the vertical load, the load transfers are considered in the embedded model with a set of algebraic equations. Finally, a simulation evaluation of the proposed sliding mode observer is conducted on a validated 14 DOF vehicle model. The simulation results show the model outputs closely match the estimations by the proposed sliding mode observer.

The tire lateral force is essential to the vehicle handling and stability under cornering. However, it is difficult for engineers to get the tire lateral force under high loading condition due to the limitation of loading ability for most tire test machine in the world. The widely used semi-empirical tire lateral force models are obtained by curve-fitting experiments data and thus unable to predict the load dependent lateral force. The objective of this paper is to predict the tire lateral force under high-load condition based on the low-load tire data. The nonlinear characteristics of the tire cornering stiffness with the load are greatly affected by the tire carcass compliance. In this paper, a theoretical tire lateral model was built by considering carcass complex deformation. Combined with the relationship between the half-length of the tire contact patch and the load, the non-linear characteristics of the tire cornering stiffness with load were obtained.

One of the most essential factors causing automobile and aircraft shimmy is energy import from road to tires due to tire hysteresis characteristic. The magnitudes and direction of the energy import are close to frequency responses of tire cornering properties (TCP), which can be calculated directly according to the presented non-steady state TCP theoretical model. Selfexcited shimmy is the main type of wheel shimmy and behaves as negative equivalent damping characteristic of the tire-road vibration subsystem. The values of energy import or equivalent damping determine the tendency of wheel shimmy. Tire structural parameters have certain effects on frequency response of TCP and thereby result in influences on wheel shimmy. Based on the tire model, some valid ways to decrease shimmy tendency are concluded through proper variations of carcass stiffness, tire-width, kingpin caster, tire pneumatic trail, tire cornering stiffness and so on.

Non-steady state (NSS) tire cornering properties show obvious differences from steady state (SS) tire cornering properties. A two-DOF automobile model with steer angle as an input is established based on the known NSS tire model considering complex carcass deformation. The tire model can certainly be applied to modelling of a multi-DOF automobile system. The frequency responses of lateral acceleration and yaw rate are then derived. An evaluation index, amplitude-frequency characteristic of relative error (AFCRE), is used to analyze the influences of NSS front wheels (FW) and/or rear wheels (RW) on automotive handling. The influences of NSS FW are much greater than those of NSS RW only on automotive handling. The established automobile model can also be applied to other similar studies of vehicle dynamics.