There is a growing need for the accurate Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) models for vehicle performance evaluation. The reduced product development time and complexity of the vehicle evaluation demands accurate prediction with CAE models. Vehicle dynamics performance evaluation is very critical in vehicle development process, which require very accurate vehicle and tire models.
The tire characteristics are represented as mathematical, physics based and empirical models. There are different types of tire models exist like Fiala, PAC, SWIFT and FTire etc, which can be used for vehicle handling, ride and steering performance evaluation. There is a need to study and understand these tire models before applying to specific vehicle dynamic performance. There is a challenge to get the tire models as tire modeling require lot of tests and time consuming. Understanding the required tire models is very much essential to define the tire test requirements at the same time not compromising the vehicle performance evaluation.
In this paper different tire models like Fiala, PAC and FTire models are evaluated for vehicle handling, ride and steering applications. Tire measurements are done on 235/65R17 tire and different tire models Fiala, PAC [MF- magic formula] and FTire are obtained. Different vehicle handling, ride and steering simulations are performed in ADAMS/Car. The simulated results with different tire models are compared with test data. Finally based on correlation levels the suitable tire model to the specific vehicle performance is decided.