Investigation of Road Surface Roughness Effect on Tread Rubber Friction with FEA

Tread-road friction was investigated with respect to road surface roughness using FEA. The surface roughness can be evaluated by the statistical parameters and functions such as standard deviation, skewness, kurtosis, and power spectral density, which could be obtained from the real surfaces. The roughness effect on rubber friction was verified by means of FEA with the application of the Gaussian/non-Gaussian surfaces, which comprise the given statistical parameters. At the same time the contact analysis is discussed with respect to the different types of rubber, the normal pressure, sliding speed and friction coefficient.