A New Tire Model for Road Loads Simulation: Full Vehicle Validation

Road loads tire models are used in the automotive industry in full vehicle simulations to compute the loading from the road into the chassis encountered in proving ground durability events. Such events typically include Belgian Block events, bump events, potholes and others. Correctly capturing tire enveloping forces in such events has historically been challenging - several different approaches exist each with its own limitations. In this paper a model is presented which captures the first order tire dynamics (frequencies lower than 80 Hz) and associated enveloping loading without the need of an effective road profile.

The theory behind this tire model is briefly introduced. Importantly, a comprehensive study of the validation of the tire model is given which shows correlation for full vehicle dynamic proving ground events.

A Virtual Tire Lab (VTL) pre-processing tool is also presented which is used to compute tire model input parameters from a validated non-linear FEA tire model. The VTL eliminates the need for design-intent tire hardware for testing, and hence considerably reduces time and costs in testing tires. VTL makes available the road-loads tire model parameters early in the vehicle development process, enabling early prediction of road loads.