Tyre-Road Interaction Noise Prediction: A Simulation-Based Approach

The tyre industry faces high expectations to design and produce tyres that meet the continually stringent tyre-road noise level requirements. With increasing market pressure, the demand for low noise tyres is on the rise. Since tyre prototyping is an expensive and time-consuming process, a robust method for the prediction of tyre-road interaction noise using simulation techniques is required. Based on the physical mechanism, tyre rolling noise sources can be broadly divided into structure based wall vibrations and fluid induced tread pumping sources. In this work, a combination of structural and acoustic FEA based simulation methodology has been used for the prediction of tyre tread pattern noise. First step of the methodology is an explicit structural finite element simulation, which is used to obtain the nodal displacements of the tyre. The results of this first calculation are then used in a second step in the frequency domain. Equivalent sources are extracted from the explicit simulation and projected onto an acoustic mesh and converted to the Fourier space. The resulting noise field is computed and then propagated to the required listener locations. Comparison of noise data measured in a semi-anechoic test chamber with the simulated results shows an excellent match in both overall sound pressure levels (SPL) and SPL spectrum. The combined structural and acoustic FEA based approach followed in this work is used for the prediction of tyre rolling noise for different tread patterns as well as for structural and material changes in tyre construction, which will help in the development of low noise tyre with a reduced number of physical trials. Although this approach has been shown to work for truck bus radial (TBR) tyres, it can also be applied for passenger car radial (PCR) tyres; we therefore plan to use this methodology for the development of PCR tyres in the future.