Abstract
KEYWORDS
tyre, contact patch, contact stress, internal pressure, finite element model.
ABSTRACT
The development of the tyre model presented in this paper is intended to contribute to the numerical approach of investigating the stress in the tyre-road contact patch. The non-linear and anisotropic model was defined so that it replicates the real structure of a tyre, taking into account the different components of the tyre. However the model does not include the tread profile and the mesh density is not refined, because of the limited computational resources. The first simulation effected on the 2D finite element model of the tyre cross-section represents the analysis of the inflation by a constant internal pressure. The stationary simulations performed using the 3D model of the tyre include the analysis of the inflation when a constant internal pressure is applied, the contact analysis carried out for a certain vertical displacement and then for a prescribed vertical load. In this analysis the friction coefficient between the tyre and road surface is taken into account. The contact patch pressure distribution resulting from the simulation is comparable to the experimental data.