Rubber Tire Characterization Using Experimental and Computational Methods in Crash Applications

Tire plays an important role in frontal impacts as it acts as a load path to transfer loads from barrier to side sill or rocker panels of passenger vehicles. In order to achieve better correlation and more reliable predictions of vehicle crash performance in CAE simulations, modeling techniques are continuously getting refined with detailed representation of vehicle components in full vehicle crash simulations. In this study, detailed tire modeling process is explored to represent tire dynamic stiffness more accurately in frontal impact crash simulations. Detailed representation of tire internal components such as steel belts, body plies, steel beads along with rubber tread and sidewall portion have been done. Passenger car tubeless radial tire was chosen for this study. Initially, quasi-static tensile coupon tests were carried out in both longitudinal and lateral direction of tread portion of tire. After achieving decent CAE correlation at coupon level tests, static compression test was carried out on tire assembly with Universal Testing Machine and dynamic impact test with moving trolley. Complete tire model was characterized for static and dynamic compression behavior in CAE based on component level tire tests. It is observed that tire FE model characterized in this way significantly improved the accuracy of CAE prediction for tire behavior in full vehicle crash test simulations.