Modeling and Prediction of Truck Tire Temperature Using Advanced Computational Techniques

This paper explores the development of a Finite Element tire-road interaction thermal model for a Mixed Service Drive (MSD) truck tire sized 315/80R22.5. Physical experiments were performed at a high-speed track in Hällered, Sweden for a truck combination traveling at a constant speed of 80 km/h. For this investigation, the Gross Combination Weight is approximately 42 tons. In the Finite Element Analysis environment, ESI PAMCRASH, the truck tire is designed with hyperelastic Ogden solid rubber definitions. The Ogden material definition is used in this application as it is more suitable to perform thermal and wear analysis. The Finite Element truck tire model is designed to build up temperature through tire-road friction contact. The truck tire model simulates the thermal build-up over time for select tires on a High-Capacity transport truck combination, such as a tractor-semitrailer, particularly a free-rolling semi-trailer and dolly tire. Tire models over real-time in the FEA environment can be computationally expensive, especially modeling the buildup of tire temperature. Experimentally, the temperature of free rolling tires of a fully loaded semitrailer axle is measured. The tests showed that temperature is rapidly increased in a shorter time frame, which is suitable and efficient for developing the FEA simulations.