Analysis on Tyre Wear : Modelling and Simulations

The tyre is an essential part of a road vehicle. It is in the contact between road and tyre that the forces that create the possibility for the driver to control the vehicle are generated. Tyres, however, wear down, which leads to both unhealthy wear particles and disposal of old tyres, both of which are harmful to the environment. If one could learn more about what causes wear, it might be possible to reduce tyre wear, which would be beneficial from both an economic and an ecological point of view. The aim of this thesis work is to develop a tyre model that can simulate tyre wear and take temperature, pressure and vehicle settings into account. Based on tyre brush theory, a tyre wear model has been developed which includes a thermal model, a pressure model and a friction model. Simulations and analysis of different cases has been performed. From the results, one can conclude the following: the tyre temperature and inflation pressure change with the distance the vehicle travels at the beginning and later become steady; higher external temperature will decrease tyre wear rate since the inflation pressure increases with the external temperature and the sliding friction decreases; higher vehicle speed leads to a higher tyre wear rate; the tyre temperature increases with increasing vehicle speed; the amount of tyre wear increases linearly with the normal load on the tyre; the tyre wear increases with the slip ratio exponentially due to both the siding distance and the sliding friction increasing with the slip ratio; the tyre wear increases exponentially with the slip angle. The complete model can estimate the tyre wear with different vehicle settings and external factors. More experiments are needed in the future to validate the complete model. In addition, since the heat transfer coefficient is changeable with temperature, the thermal model can be improved by introducing dynamic heat transfer coefficients. The Savkoor friction model used in the report can also be improved by tuning its parameters using more experimental data