Study of 3D printing for forming spoke of non-pneumatic tire using finite element method

Abstract

Over the last decade, non-pneumatic tire (NPT) was developed by replacing air in traditional pneumatic tire with polyurethane (PU) spoke. However, there are some limitations in building complex shape of spokes. Recently, the 3D printing technique has been used to form complex part of real products. Consequently, it can use to build the complex spoke of NPT. This research aimed to study the possibility of using 3D printing technique to build the complex shape of spoke for NPT. This can be done by studying the mechanical properties of 3D printing material suitable for NPT’s spoke. The PU filament was printed into tensile specimens to carry out the stress-strain relationship by using universal testing machine. The finite element (FE) model of NPT was then created using mechanical parameters of the tension result. The vertical stiffness testing on the NPT model was analyzed. The NPT performance to support the vertical load of real NPT and FE model with original material was carried out to compare with the 3D printing model. Furthermore, the advantage and disadvantage including limitation of using 3D printing technique to manufacture the NPT spoke were discussed.