Determination of Tire Characteristics from Vehicle Behavior

This work is concerned with the development of a procedure for the determination of truck tire characteristics from truck behavior measurements. The procedure investigated involves determination of these characteristics by matching the behavior of a full size tractor-semitrailer truck with that of a simulated truck. The matching is accomplished using an optimization procedure. The results obtained show that the procedure can provide satisfactory estimates of actual tire characteristics under some conditions. Limitations associated with certain aspects of the procedure are studied.