A Model of Tire Enveloping Properties and Its Application on Modelling of Automobile Vibration Systems

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. Comparisons of automobile simulation results with test data show that the FRC model can be more effectively applied to modelling of automobile vibration systems than other tire enveloping models, such as single point contact model, RRC model, etc.