Mechanical Properties of Radial-Ply Aircraft Tires

Tire mechanical property data from several radial-ply aircraft tires have been analyzed and compared to empirical bias-ply tire property models developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in the late 1950’s. Radial tire data from high-speed testing on the NASA Aircraft Landing Dynamics Facility and low-speed radial-ply tire data obtained from qualification testing by various tire manufacturers are compared to the empirical bias-ply models. Data from the NASA tests and the tire manufacturer qualification tests show similar trends. Measured tire mechanical properties computed from both radial-ply data sets are in disagreement with the predicted tire material properties computed from the NASA bias-ply models.