Finite element analysis and experimental investigation of tyre characteristics for developing strain based intelligent tyre system
This thesis reports an investigation into the relationships between the tyre strain feature and tyre operating conditions based on finite element analysis and experiments for the development of a strain based intelligent tyre system, which could estimate the tyre operating characteristics for optimising vehicle dynamics control and improving vehicle safety. A 175/505R13 tyre is adopted as the subject of this study. An efficient and effective material property determination procedure is developed for investigating the rubber and reinforcement material properties by experiment. Considering the possibility of the absence of tyre composite profile due to proprietary protection by tyre manufacturer, a novel imagebased method is developed to capture the tyre geometry feature from the tyre product cut cross section. Both the 2D and 3D finite element tyre models are created in the commercial finite element code ABAQUS. The generated finite element tyre models are validated with experimental data and then adopted to construct the comprehensive relationship between tyre strain feature and tyre operating characteristics. Experimental validation of these estimation models are implemented based on a custom designed test system. Finally, some recommendations are presented for improving the capability of the finite element tyre model and the strain based intelligent tyre test system.