Tire Pattern Research Articles

Tyre pattern image retrieval – current status and challenges

Tyre pattern image retrieval (TPIR) is an important tool in the investigation of criminal activities and traffic accidents. Although content-based image retrieval (CBIR) has been developed for decades with abundant results, the study on TPIR which started in the 1990s has not made much progress. The lack of large standard test datasets is a crucial shortcoming which limits the research in this field. Information presented in this paper is a result of the authors’ literature research on recent academic publications and practical field investigation in the public security and transportation sectors. The state-of-the-art technologies in the field of TPIR are surveyed in detail from two aspects of tyre patterns – their low-level spatial features and high-level semantic features. Existing algorithms are examined and their pros and cons are compared and verified through experimental results. This paper also surveys the available tyre pattern datasets used in all available literature. Finally, with the considerations on technology trends in image retrieval and application requirements in TPIR, the future research directions in this field are laid out.

Evaluation of the gear noise reduction potential of geometrically uneven inequidistant gears

Randomizing the periodic excitation is a well-known noise reduction measure, for example in fans and tire patterns. Due to a randomized excitation the tonal components of the generated noise are reduced while broadband noise is increased in amplitude. This less tonal noise with a more broadband character is perceived less annoying. In the presented research this approach is applied to gears – called inequidistant gears. They are characterized by uneven tooth positions and uneven tooth thicknesses. The deviations from regular, perfectly even gears may be up to several millimeters in both position and thickness. In the same way as in fans and tire patterns, the uneven design of inequidistant gears leads to a less tonal and less annoying noise. In this paper the design of inequidistant gears is introduced. Equations are derived to define the uneven geometry of an inequidistant gear wheel and to exactly match a pair of meshing inequidistant gears. The presented approach is valid for spur gears, helical gears, and double helical gears, but only spur gears are considered in this paper. Furthermore, a method to calculate the gear mesh stiffness, which is the main excitation mechanism in gear noise, and a method to calculate the gear mesh forces are presented. Experimental investigations are carried out on a back-to-back gear test bench. The calculated gear mesh force and the experimentally determined sound pressure of a regular, perfectly even spur gear set are compared to those of an equivalent inequidistant spur gear set. The results reveal that inequidistant gears not only reduce the tonality but are – in contrast to uneven designs of fans and tire patterns – capable of reducing the total sound pressure level.

Dynamic measurement of the fluid pressure in the tire contact area on wet roads

The main goal of this study was the experimental investigation of the fluid pressure in the boundary region between wet grip and hydroplaning. In order to gain an insight into the processes in the tire contact area, a test setup was developed to directly measure the fluid pressure in the water film between tire and road. The fluid pressure was measured on an asphalt track for different speeds, water heights and tire patterns on an inner drum test bench. The influence of the examined parameters on the fluid pressure is clearly visible and physically plausible. Braking tests were done in order to clarify how much the fluid pressure build up influences the overall braking performance in the boundary region between wet grip and hydroplaning.

Physical Model of Tire-Road Contact Under Wet Conditions

A physical model to describe the contact between rubber and a rough surface with water as intermediate medium is presented. The Navier–Stokes equations are simplified and surface properties are approached by the Abbott–Firestone curve to generate an approximative description of the water squeeze out between a visco-elastic rubber block and a macro-rough surface. The model is used to describe the pattern dependent wet grip performance of vehicle tires at moderate water heights between pure wetgrip and full hydroplaning. Influence of surface macro-roughness, water height, tire pattern, and vehicle speed on braking performance is considered in particular. For validation purpose, braking tests on two different surfaces were done at an inner drum test bench. Test results show good agreement with the theory presented.

Mechanics of Tire Pattern

Tire pattern is related to various tire performances. The first step for the design of tire pattern is to design pattern rigidity and then tune the pattern to satisfy the required performances by using the simple design tool based on the analytical model, numerical simulation and designer's experience. The pattern design for pattern rigidity, tire noise, hydroplaning, maneuverability and wear will be discussed in this paper.

Prediction and Sound Quality Analysis of Tire Pattern Noise Based on System Identification by Utilizing an Optimal Adaptive Filter

Identifying the cause of vehicle noise is a basic requirement for the development of low-noise vehicles. The tire pattern noise depends on the tire itself and causes complex and unpredictable sounds. In pneumatic tire pattern design, the prediction technology of the tire pattern noise according to pattern shape design is important. The conventional method of predicting tire pattern noise is to simply scan the pattern shape of tire and to analyze its spectrum. However, this method has limitations because it does not consider the transfer function and precise mechanism of tire pattern noise. In this study, adaptive filter theory was applied to identify the transfer function between the grooves of patterns and measured acoustic data. To predict the waveform of an actual pattern noise in the time domain, the impulse response of this transfer function was convolved by the scanned pattern input of tires. The predicted waveform of pattern noise was validated with the waveforms of measured noise data. Finally, a sound quality index (SQI) of tire pattern noise was developed using the measured pattern noises and was applied to estimate the sound quality of pattern noise. Eventually, using the prediction method from this study, we hope to reduce the time and cost spent on tire pattern design and verification.

PRINCIPLES OF ENSURING ENVIRONMENTAL WELFARE OF THE POPULATION UNDER THE EXPOSURE OF THE NOISE OF MOVING MOTOR TRANSPORT

The article presents the results of theoretical research, field and instrumental measurements of traffic flow on the main streets of Vladikavkaz. It is shown that in the formation of noise pollution of the urban environment during the movement of vehicles on the roads of the Vladikavkaz city, the road covering material, vehicle speed, tire pattern wear and out-of-limit lifespan, etc., are of great importance. The economic analysis of noise shield devices of vehicles and the dependence of the decrease in the sound pressure of transport and the implementation costs are given. At the same time, the norms of permissible sound levels in residential areas depending on the time of day are shown, which is significant when assessing the environmental comfort of housing in noise-stressed areas of the city. At the end of the article, conclusions are given for various categories of institutions and control and supervisory bodies to ensure favorable sanitary and environmental conditions for the population.

A feature-based method for tire pattern reverse modeling

In order to efficiently and effectively convert the tire point cloud to the 3D CAD model, a feature-based reverse modeling method reflecting the design intent of pattern structure is proposed in this paper. The concrete research contents are as follows. Firstly, the 3D scan line point cloud is transformed into the 2D point cloud mapping matrix based on range image. Secondly, the segmentation of the tread point cloud is completed with tread data and groove data separated. Thirdly, the top surface, bottom surface, and pattern boundary information is extracted from the segmented mapping matrix. And then the clustering of transversal patterns is carried out by calculating the similarity in order to repair pattern boundary and reduce human interactions. Finally, on the basis of the extracted parameters of pattern design feature, a semantic feature modeling method orienting at 3D tread pattern model is constructed. On the basis of the above theoretical study, a feature-based reverse modeling system for tire structure design is developed on the CATIA V5 platform by CAA. Test examples show the practicality of the system in tire pattern reverse modeling.

Design and Performance Analysis of Vehicle Tyre Pattern Material Using Finite Element Analysis and ANSYS R16.2

As it stands now, rubber has been the main material used in the making of pneumatic vehicle tyres. Speed of the vehicle depends on many factors like steering geometry, inflation pressure, vehicle load, road temperature and environmental conditions. The main aim of this research is to develop a finite element approach and computationally evaluate the performance of a steady-state rolling tyre by changing the tyre tread patterns. The tyre normally composed of rubber and body-ply was investigated with regards to the effect of the inflation pressure. Tyre modeling using six different types of patterns was completed by using Creo parametric 3D modeling software and then the tyre was discretized into small elements through ANSYS R16.2. The rim area of the tyre was fixed and pressure was applied to the inside surface of the rim. Finite element analysis was completed by using ANSYS R16.2 and equivalent stress, contact stress and contact pressure were found out to identify the best tyre pattern. From the final results it was observed that, Pattern-I had good agreement of results as compared to other type of patterns which showed medium frictional stress and contact pressure.

Simulation study on surface dynamic water pressure of bridge deck pavement

The dynamic water pressure will be caused at the surface of the bridge deck pavement when high-speed wheel load drive through. On the one hand, it can reduce the anti-sliding performance of the surfacing layer which is not conducive to traffic safety, on the other hand, dynamic water pressure will continuously scour pavement material and degrade the material performance. In order to explore the formation and evolution laws of dynamic water pressure on the pavement surface, analysis the factors influence on dynamic water pressure, the finite element method was used to establish the simulation calculation model, and the influence factors such as the water film thickness, different speed of wheel load and tire pattern depth were considered. The main conclusions are as follows: The finite element method to calculate the tire ground area and the vertical displacement can give reasonable geometry size of the tire in the computational fluid domain; the wheel drives through at high speed to squeeze the water at the surface. The tire pattern cannot discharge the water under the tire quickly, and most of the water that is stuck in the grounding area forms the dynamic water pressure. The value of the dynamic water pressure is positively correlated with the wheel load speed and the water film thickness. When the speed is 100km/h, the maximum dynamic water pressure is about 0.272MPa.

Tyre Pattern Features and Their Effects on Passenger Vehicle Drag

In light of the drive for energy efficiency and low CO 2 emissions, extensive research is performed to reduce vehicle aerodynamic drag. The wheels are relatively shielded from the main flow compared to the exterior of the passenger car, however, they are typically responsible for around 25% of the overall vehicle drag. This contribution is large as the wheels and tyres protrude into the flow and change the flow structure around the vehicle underbody. Given that the tyre is the first part of the wheel to get in contact with the oncoming flow, its shape and features have a significant impact on the flow pattern that develops. This study aims at identifying the general effects of two main tyre features, the longitudinal rain grooves and lateral pattern grooves, using both CFD and wind tunnel tests. This is performed by cutting generic representations of these details into identical slick tyres. Combinations of the two resulted in four physical tyre patterns that are tested on both a production and a closed rim. The test setup is reproduced in CFD taking the tyre deformation under loading into account. Due to the tyre's deformation, Moving Reference Frame - grooves (MRFg) was used to model rotation, while the rim spokes were modelled with the sliding mesh approach. The results indicate that the rain grooves play a significant role in reducing drag when introduced on a slick tyre both in test and simulations, while the results from adding lateral grooves were less consistent dependent on the rim-tyre combination. The interaction between the longitudinal and lateral grooves could be observed on the overall vehicle drag. In general, CFD is able to predict the drag changes for different tyre patterns with good accuracy for the open rim, however the closed rim case proved to be more challenging.

Experimental Investigation of Tire Slap Noise

ABSTRACT Tire noise is an important issue both in the vehicle interior and to the vehicle exterior, since it affects passenger comfort and environmental noise levels, respectively. Such noise is increased when a tire encounters discontinuities on the road surface, the discontinuity being either a gap or a bump. The relatively high frequency (e.g., approximately 1 kHz and above) airborne tire noise generated by such discontinuities is defined as tire slap noise in this study. Most previous research on noise generated by surface discontinuities has been focused on lower frequency tire noise, typically below 600 Hz, and, in particular, on structural-borne noise transmitted from the tire into the vehicle associated with the acoustic modes of the tire interior. Here, instead, the focus is on higher frequency airborne transmission. Further, the study here is conducted from the perspective of tire structural vibration, which concerns the vibration of and sound radiation from the tire treadband structure, rather than tire pattern noise, for example. The high frequency tire slap noise was investigated in a laboratory environment. The measurements were conducted by using the Ray W. Herrick Laboratories' Tire Pavement Test Apparatus (TPTA), on which a loaded tire can be run on realistic road surfaces at speeds up to 50 km/h; the resulting tire noise was measured using the On-Board Sound Intensity (OBSI) method. A gap between two different concrete surfaces was chosen as the road discontinuity, and both narrow band and one-third-octave band spectra were recorded over the gap and over the adjacent smooth road surface segments. Several tires were tested on the TPTA, and their slap noise was recorded. Surface noise and slap noise were compared up to 1600 Hz to show the impact of the discontinuity on the tire noise radiation. Generally, slap noise is of a higher level than the surface noise, especially between 800 and 1400 Hz, but some tires showed distinct differences between the noise response on the surface and over the gap, while other tires radiated similar noise on both the surface and over the gap. Moreover, static tire mobility measurements were performed to investigate the wave type responsible for the different responses on the gap and the surface.

Prediction of Uneven Tire Wear Using Wear Progress Simulation

ABSTRACT Tire wear performance is very important in terms of safety and economic benefit for customers and environmental conservation. Tire wear performance can be sorted into “global” or “local” wear. Local wear means uneven tire wear, for example, heel/toe wear, one-sided shoulder wear, feather edge wear, etc. This uneven wear decreases tire life locally and has the potential for causing a noise problem, so it is very important to improve uneven wear performance for long life tire. It is difficult to correctly evaluate the uneven tire wear performance of a brand-new tire, because the tire wear performance changes with tire pattern shape transformation as it wears. In order to experimentally evaluate uneven wear performance accurately, we have to do time-consuming tire road tests. Therefore, we need a prediction method for uneven wear. In this paper, we introduce “wear progress simulation” developed in order to evaluate heel/toe wear performance, which occurs in the shoulder blocks. This method involves “wearing out the finite element (FE) tire model” using wear energy calculated from tire rolling simulation. By this method, we can observe the transformation of tire pattern shape and wear energy distribution. As a result, we can estimate the difference of heel/toe wear performance among tires by our developed simulation.

タイヤへのCAE活用の歴史

A finite element method (FEM) was developed in 1950s as a tool of computational mechanics. In the tire manufacturers, the FEM was started applying to a tire analysis in the beginning of 1970s and this was much earlier than the vehicle industry, electric industry, and others. The main reason was that construction and configurations of a tire were so complicated that analytical approach could not solve many problems related with tire mechanics. Since FEM could make the stress/strain behavior visible in a tire, the application area was mainly tire durability in the early stage. Combining FEM with optimization technique, the tire design procedure has been developed in side wall shape, tire crown shape, tire pattern, and etc. After that the computational mechanics becomes an indispensable tool for tire industry. Furthermore, an insight to improve tire performances is obtained from the optimized solution and the new technologies are created from the insight. The computational mechanics will be applied in multi-disciplinary area and nano-scale area to create a new technology of the environmental subjects such as rolling resistance (RR), noise and wear.

Simulation of Rolling Noise Based on the Mixed Lagrangian–Eulerian Method

ABSTRACT This article presents a new method for predicting rolling noise, which is an increasingly important subject not only for roads but also for the railway transportation industry and has attracted an increasing amount of attention. Unfortunately, there are no effective numerical methods to analyze and predict rolling noise because of the required solution accuracy. For example, tires are often simplified as shells or rings in rolling noise modelling, lacking the pattern information, and leading to low accuracy. The new method presented in this article is based on the mixed Lagrangian–Eulerian method, which can be used to analyze the velocity field, acceleration field, and contact deformation of rolling contact structures with large deformations. First, two kinds of tire meshes are developed: a Lagrangian mesh for the rolling tire and an Eulerian mesh that is fixed in space and that will be used in the noise simulation. A nonrotational acceleration field is constructed by mapping the acceleration of the Lagrangian mesh onto the Eulerian mesh. Then, using that acceleration field as the acoustic source, the rolling noise can be predicted numerically using the boundary element method. Comparison between the test and simulation results shows that this method provides reasonable predications. The case studies demonstrate that the rolling noise of a tire with a block pattern is mostly caused by the impact vibration of the tire pattern. The method provides a powerful tool for investigating rolling noise, especially for patterned tires.

タイヤのトレッドパターンから発生する音と加速度の関連について

タイヤのトレッドパターンから発生する音と加速度の関連について

轮胎花纹块表面形状优化研究

轮胎花纹块接地压力分布对轮胎耐磨性能，抓地性能有着重要的影响。本文利用三维有限元软件，以花纹块表面的节点坐标为设计变量，以花纹块接地压力偏度值为目标函数对花纹块表面形状进行优化。结果表明，该方法可以优化花纹块接地压力，改善轮胎磨损性能和抓地性能。 The contact pressure distribution of the tire tread block has an important impact on tire wear re-sistance and grip performance. In this paper, a new optimization procedure to design the surface of tire patterns is combined with 3D finite element method. The coordinates of the nodes of the surface of the tread blocks were chosen as the design variables, and the deviation of contact pres-sure distribution was selected as target variable. The results confirmed that the optimization technique could lead to a final optimum distribution of contact pressure and better wear and grip performance.

A hybrid numerical-experimental analysis for tire air-pumping noise with application to pattern optimization

As a vehicle travels at moderate/high speeds, tire noise becomes dominant over other sources of vehicle noise. It is a challenging task to determine the spectral characteristics of the tire noise source and even much more challenging to predict the tire pattern noise. This paper proposes a hybrid experimental-numerical method to identify the tire air-pumping noise spectrum and to predict the pattern noise. A special designed test and cut tire are used to obtain the near field tire noise spectrum while the boundary element method (BEM) is used to determine the transfer characteristics between noise source and selected field points. Then, the spectral characteristics of the air pumping source can be identified by combined use of the numerical transfer characteristics and the measured noise of the cut tire by solving the Helmholtz equation. In the end, the proposed approach has been developed into an in-house software and practical tire pattern noise has been investigated successfully. The established model is able to predict the noise at any field point and the good agreement between the predicted results and tests can be found, demonstrating the reasonability of the proposed approach. In addition, an optimization method of tire tread block shift and mold shift, i.e. moving one of the two half molds and/or tread ribs along the circumferential direction to change their relative phases, are proposed based on the developed software. A practical example demonstrates that the proposed approach and in-house code can be used to predict and optimize tire tread pattern noise.

Study on rotation-invariant texture feature extraction for tire pattern retrieval

One key task in forensic science is to perform criminal investigation through image database retrieval. Of the various images, tire pattern is an important type of image data for crime scene investigation. However, different rotation and direction of tire patterns are often encountered and is insufficient to use the conventional multi-scale texture feature extraction method which is not rotational invariant. To alleviate this problem, the paper proposed two new texture feature extraction methods based on the Radon transform and Curvelet transform. The experiments were conducted using a tire pattern database containing 400 images. The results show that the proposed methods effectively overcome the influences of rotation and significantly improve the retrieval efficiency.

Effect of V/N ratio on the high strain and low cycle fatigue behaviors of V–N microalloyed rebars

Based on the failure model of rebars in reinforced concrete (RC) structures under seismic loading, the high strain and low cycle fatigue(HSLCF) behaviors of V–N MA (V–N microalloyed) rebars of three different V/N ratio (10, 6, 3) were investigated systematically under total strain controlled. The HSLCF life with 95% confidence degree (N95) was obtained through a double-parameters Weibull probability function. Cyclic toughness, the rates of energy-absorption under seismic loading, was proposed to characterize the HSLCF performance of rebars. The results were compared and indicated that although the static mechanical properties of three types of rebars are similar, the rebar with a V/N ratio of about 6 exhibits the higher cyclic toughness, fatigue life and stress amplitude than that of other rebars under constant strain amplitude, and more tire patterns could be observed in its fatigue fractography. Less or excess of V/N ratio, other than 6, are detrimental to the precipitation of V(C, N) particles. The rebars with abundant, dispersed and nanometer-sized precipitations of V(C, N) could bear greater cyclic deformation and stress amplitude under HSLCF loading, suggesting that the V–N MA rebars with a certain V/N ratio would have better seismic performance.