Abstract
The purpose of this study is to develop an efficient interaction model of tire and soft ground for vehicle simulations on off-road terrain. The model presented in this paper describes the deformable behavior of the elastic tire and the behavior with large displacement and destruction of the soft ground. We adopt a distributed lumped mass-spring model as the tire, Discrete Element Method (DEM) model as the upper soft ground and a mass-spring model as the lower soft ground. A tire model with lug considering contact geometry is also developed on the basis of the interaction model. Numerical simulations of the tire behavior on soft ground using these models have been conducted. The results of the numerical simulations show that the proposed models of tire and soft ground are efficient for vehicle simulations on off-road terrain and that the lug of tire is effective in improving tractive performance of tire.
