Preliminary implementation of model-based algorithms for truck tire characterizations from outdoor sessions

The tire behavior optimization is crucial for the definition of the best setup of the whole vehicle; in fact, its interface with the ground is constituted by the sum of small surfaces in which tire-road interaction forces are exchanged. The fundamental role that in the last years tires have played in automotive industry and the growing need to reproduce with a high level of detail the phenomena concerning with vehicle dynamics have given a strong impulse to the research in the field of vehicle systems and modelling. This paper focuses on the possibility to modify and extend the use of a preexisting tool for tires’ forces estimation to the heavy vehicles field, such as Truck, Bus, Agro and OTR. The tool developed by the UniNa Vehicle Dynamics research group, represents a customization of TRICK Tool software, able to predict truck tires behavior, based on standard sensors and signals acquired from the vehicle CAN bus. This enables to study vehicle dynamics and tires characteristics using the truck as a moving lab. The final processing tool, named TRICK4TRUCK, returns a sort of “virtual telemetry” that includes forces and slips, evaluated on the basis of equilibrium and kinematics equations, useful to provide tire-road interaction characteristics and to predict and simulate the real tire behavior. This tool can be an important instrument for the interaction curves identification based on models such as the Pacejka’s MF one. After some brief notes about the basics of heavy vehicle dynamics and tire-road interaction, the developed tool and procedures are presented, highlighting their features and their critical issues, describing the path followed for the realization and discussing results and possible application field