Analytical investigation on tire dynamics by rigid–elastic coupled tire model with nonlinear sidewall stiffness

Abstract

With the means of rigid-elastic coupled tire model, the in-plane vibration characteristic of heavy truck tire is investigated and the time-domain vibration response with the proposed tire model is discussed. With the means of finite difference method, rigid–elastic coupled tire model is developed from flexible beam on elastic foundation tire model and the nonlinear radial stiffness of sidewall is derived and related with the inflation pressure and geometrical feature of sidewall curved arc. In-plane vibration characteristic of heavy truck tire, including transfer function and modal parameters is investigated by experimental hammer test. Taking the error between the analytical and experimental modal frequency as the object value, Genetic Algorithm is utilized to identify the un-known structural parameters. In-plane time-domain dynamics response of heavy truck tire utilizing the proposed tire model with linear/nonlinear sidewall radial stiffness is researched and compared with experimental result. Experimental and theoretical results shows that in-plane rigid–elastic coupled tire model with nonlinear sidewall stiffness can be used to better the precision on predicting the vibration feature excited by the random irregular signal. Rigid–elastic coupled tire model with nonlinear sidewall stiffness can be extended to other heavy truck tire with a large section ratio or tires under impulsive loading conditions.