Tyre and road wear prediction

Both tyre wear and road polishing are complex phenomenon, which are obviously strongly related; the energy that polishes the road is the energy that wears the tyre. The both depend non-linearly on numerous parameters, like materials used, vehicle and road usage, environmental conditions (i.e. temperature) and many others. Based on these observations, in 2000 we started the three-year 5th framework EU project TROWS (Tyre and ROad Wear and Slip assessment). This paper focuses on the followed approach, methods, tools and results of the TROWS project. Experiments have been performed on three different levels; compound tests, carousel tests and vehicle-on-the-road testing. A software environment has been developed that implements the different process steps, and that manages the data flow between these steps. These processes combine the various measurement datasets and the numerical tools developed by the different TROWS partners; one implementation allows to predict tyre global wear and the transversal tyre wear profile, the other implementation allows to predict asphalt polishing. The car tyre wear results and asphalt polishing results obtained from the measurements on the public road track in Italy agree well with the results determined with the tyre wear and road polishing prediction environments, both qualitatively as well as quantitatively. The tools developed allow tyre manufacturers to include tyre wear more easily in the early development steps of a new tyre, and help road management with the choice of which technique to use and in setting up effective road maintenance schemes