Measurement of Snow Surfaces and Tire Performance Evaluation

Research on vehicle mobility in snow has recently become significantly updated by the use of instrumented vehicles. Utilizing triaxial load cells in the front wheel assemblies, the vehicles are capable of measuring the traction and motion resistance forces located at the tire/snow interface. Based on these measured quantities, snow surface characterization parameters are developed. Also, using an energetics approach, a tire performance parameter is developed which offers a measure of the slip-shear energy expended by a tire in moving a unit distance.