Some Considerations about Longitudinal “Slip” on Car Tires

The so called “slips” - longitudinal, lateral and spin - on vehicles' tires are very important in modeling the ride and cornering vehicle dynamics, and usually they are obtained by testing or using empirical expressions. This text suggests analytical expressions to evaluate numerically the longitudinal slip factor, through calculations involving tire's geometric and material properties only, for usual ride and cornering conditions. The results are applicable to small and medium displacements and forces range, where there is no significant sliding at the tire-ground contact surface. An analogous approach to the other “slips” will be done in further articles.