Tire-Soil Interaction Simulation Using Finite Element Method to Investigate Their Deformation and Sinkage

This research investigates the tire deformation and sandy soil sinkage on the performance of off-road vehicles. Tire deformation and soil sinkage were simulated with the Finite Element Method (FEM) using ANSYS Workbench 2020 R2 and validated using actual results taken from a previous work of tire size (235/70 R15) under four different tire inflation pressures (50, 100, 150, and 200 kPa) and three soil densities varying from loose, medium dense, and high dense sand. The optimum tire inflation pressures were obtained under various soil densities to achieve flotation pressure of the tires on the soil to generate good performance and accomplish the off-road vehicle missions.