LOAD-DEFLECTION PROPERTY AND CONTACT PRESSURE DISTRIBUTION OF RADIAL TIRE

Abstract

Load-deflection relationship and contact pressure distribution of radial tire under the vertical loading in contacting with the roadway, are fundamental properties of pneumatic tire, which are well known as deeply related to driving performances of automobiles. Up to this time, a lot of research papers of theoretical and experimental studies on this problem has been published, however, the comprehensive relationships between the structural design data and the tire properties were not always elucidated apparently.
In this paper, we analyzed this problem by using a spring bedded ring model consisted of belt ring and spring systems of sidewall and tread rubber, with special consideration of the marked non-linearity of radial spring constant, K_r, of the sidewall. Increasing the vertical load by a certain amount stepwisely, we calculated deformations and contact pressure distribution of a radial tire at each step, in which K_r was assumed to be constant.
The resulted load-deflection property and the stepwise contact pressure distribution are confirmed to agree well with the experimental results, with the indication that the pressure distribution mode changes from convex to concave, with increasing the vertical load.