The main goal of this study is to improve the understanding of the interaction between a pneumatic tire and deformable terrain. A design of experiments has been implemented, that gives insight into the effect of individual tire and soil parameters, specifically wheel slip, normal load, inflation pres-sure, and soil compaction, as well as into the effect of combinations of such parameters on the tire and soil behavior. The results of such test data is exceedingly relevant, providing significant infor-mation to tire design for tire manufacturers, to users for operating conditions selection, as well as providing modeling parameters for tire models. Moreover, experimental investigation of tire-soil interaction provides validation data for tire models operating under similar conditions. In support of the validation of a soft soil tire model currently being developed at Virginia Tech under the auspices of the Automotive Research Center, experimental work has been performed on a low-speed, indoor single-wheel tester built to investigate studies in terramechanics. The terramechanics rig provides a well-controlled environment to assure repeatable testing conditions and void vehicle component ef-fects. The test tire for the rig is instrumented with a wireless sensory system that measures tire de-flection at the contact patch; combining this system with other instruments of the rig allows accurate estimations of wheel sinkage. A methodical soil preparation procedure has rendered great data to analyze several relations, such as the drawbar pull and the sinkage dependency on slip. The data col-lected indicated that, when looking at the effect of individual parameters, by increasing the soil com-paction, the normal load, and by decreasing the inflation pressure will result in a higher normalized drawbar pull. A higher normal load under all conditions consistently lowered the max tire sinkage depth. The sinkage has increased dramatically with the slip ratio, growing threefold larger at high slip (70-90%) when compared to lower slip (0-5%) ratios. / Master of Science

Automotive and Tire companies spend extensive amounts of time and money to tune their products through prototype testing at dedicated test facilities. This is mainly due to the limitations in the simulation capabilities that exist today. With greater competence in simulation, comes more control over designs in the initial stages, which in turn lowers the demand on the expensive stage of tuning. The work presented, aims at taking today's simulation capabilities a step forward by integrating models that are best developed in different software interfaces. An in-plane rigid ring model is used to understand the transient response of tires to various high frequency events such as Anti-Lock Braking and short wavelength road disturbances. A rule based ABS model performs the high frequency braking operation. The tire and ABS models have been created in the Matlab-Simulink environment. The vehicle model has been developed in CarSim. The models developed in Simulink have been integrated with the vehicle model in CarSim, in the form of a design tool that can be used by tire as well as vehicle designers for further tuning of the vehicle functional performances as they relate to in-line braking scenarios. Outdoor validation tests were performed to obtain data from a vehicle that was measured on a suspension parameter measuring machine (SPMM) in order to complement this design tool. The results of the objective tests performed have been discussed and the correlations and variations with respect to the simulation results have been analyzed. / Master of Science

The tire-terrain interaction is complex and tremendously important; it impacts the performance and safety of the vehicle and its occupants. Icy roads further enhance these complexities and adversely affect the handling of the vehicle. The analysis of the tire-ice contact focusing on individual aspects of tire construction and operation is imperative for tire industry's future. This study investigates the effects of the tread rubber compound on the drawbar pull performance of tires in contact with an ice layer near its melting point. A set of sixteen tires of eight different rubber compounds were considered. The tires were identical in design and tread patterns but have different tread rubber compounds. To study the effect of the tread rubber compound, all operational parameters were kept constant during the testing conducted on the Terramechanics Rig at the Terramechanics, Multibody, and Vehicle Systems laboratory. The tests led to conclusive evidence of the effect of the tread rubber compound on the drawbar performance (found to be most prominent in the linear region of the drawbar-slip curve) and on the resistive forces of free-rolling tires. Modeling of the tire-ice contact for estimation of temperature rise and water film height was performed using ATIIM 2.0. The performance of this in-house model was compared against three classical tire-ice friction models. A parametrization of the Magic Formula tire model was performed using experimental data and a Genetic Algorithm. The dependence of individual factors of the Magic Formula on the ambient temperature, tire age, and tread rubber compounds was investigated. / Master of Science / The interaction between the tire and icy road conditions in the context of the safety of the occupants of the vehicle is a demanding test of the skills of the driver. The expected maneuvers of a vehicle in response to the actions of the driver become heavily unpredictable depending on a variety of factors like the thickness of the ice, its temperature, ambient temperature, the conditions of the vehicle and the tire, etc. To overcome the issues that could arise, the development of winter tires got a boost, especially with siping and rubber compounding technology. This research focuses on the effects on the tire performance on ice due to the variation in the tread rubber compounds. The experimental accomplishment of the same was performed using the Terramechanics rig at the Terramechanics, Multibody, and Vehicle Systems (TMVS) laboratory. It was found that the effect of the rubber compound is most pronounced in the region where most vehicles operate under normal circumstances. An attempt was made to simulate the temperature rise in the contact patch and the water film that exists due to the localized melting of ice caused by frictional heating. Three classical friction models were used to compare the predictions against ATIIM 2.0, an in-house developed model. Using an optimization technique namely the Genetic Algorithm, efforts were made to understand the effects of the tread rubber compound, the ambient temperature, and the aging of the tire on the parameters of the Magic Formula model, an empirical model describing the performance of the tire.

This thesis aims at estimating vital vehicle states and developing control algorithms for automotive suspensions and vehicle stability. A parametric model of an automotive monotube damper is developed and several control algorithms for semi-active suspensions have been developed. An extensive comparison of different control algorithms has been done. Skyhook, Groundhook, Hybrid, Acceleration-driven, Power-driven, Groundhook-linear, Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) optimal, Genetic algorithm optimized Linear Quadratic Regulator optimal, Model-reference adaptive, H∞ robust, µ-synthesis, fuzzy-logic based, and Deep Reinforcement learning based control algorithms have been developed and simulated. A shock dyno is instrumented and skyhook and groundhook control algorithms have been implemented as well. In addition to this, a semi-active suspension switching based control algorithm is developed for reducing the effort of a direct moment yaw rate controller, and improve stability of a vehicle when turning. Accelerometer based intelligent tires have been used to estimate vehicle states like vertical load on tire, velocity of the vehicle, unsprung mass acceleration, and forces on a tire. All these estimations would be helpful in observing various parameters of a vehicle using data from only a tri-axis accelerometer inside the tire. Data was collected in an instrumented Volkswagen Jetta and a Trailer setup as well. The test vehicle was instrumented with a tri-axis accelerometer inside the tire, encoder, Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU), and VBOX Racelogic Global Positioning System (GPS) based velocity measurement unit. For payload estimation, the data collected by the in-tire accelerometer was converted into frequency domain using Welch's method of averaging, followed by feature extraction. The extracted features were fed to a trained bagged trees model. Root mean squared error of 11% was observed on the test dataset. For velocity estimation, the data collected by the accelerometer was fed to a variational mode decomposition process. The extracted mode was converted to time-frequency domain using Hilbert transform and features for machine learning were extracted. A root mean squared error of 1.02kmph was observed on the trained dataset. A Gaussian process model was trained for this application. For unsprung mass acceleration estimation, the test vehicle was instrumented with an accelerometer near the wheel spindle as well. For this estimation problem, Convolutional neural networks (CNN) were used. The time-frequency spectrogram of x, y, and z axis data of the in-tire accelerometer were considered as the three color channels of an image. With this, an image of 224 x 224 x 3 dimensions was generated, which represented the time and frequency variation of data. These images were used for training the CNN and a 96.8% coefficient of correlation was obtained for this regression task. For the last wheel force estimation problem, the concept of training the images generated by overlapping time-frequency matrices was used and an accuracy of 90.1% was achieved. With these estimation of vehicle states, better control algorithms can be developed and deployed for better handling, safety and comfort of vehicles using data from only tri-axis accelerometer in the tire. / Master of Science / The main objective of this thesis is to aid in the development of better control systems for vehicles, using data from accelerometer-based intelligent tire. Payload on the vehicle's tire, vehicle velocity, wheel acceleration, and wheel forces are vital parameters, which if estimated correctly can be instrumental in having better understanding of the vehicle's condition. A tri-axis accelerometer is mounted inside the tire, and is used for estimating these vehicle parameters. Statistical models are developed based on features extracted from the accelerometer data. The main challenge was to use the data collected by only intelligent tire to estimate vehicle states. This makes the developed algorithms independent of other sensors and hence economic. Tires are the only component which serve as a link between the vehicle and road. Hence, these parameter estimations can be accurately observed simultaneously using the in-tire accelerometer data. Testing is done on an instrumented trailer-test setup and a Volkswagen Jetta. The vehicle is instrumented with the intelligent tire, a Global positioning system (GPS) based velocity measuring unit, Inertial measurement unit (IMU), and encoder. Testing is done for different loading conditions, road surfaces, inflation pressures, and vehicle velocities. In this way, it has been attempted to make the developed statistical models robust and expose them to a multitude of test conditions. In addition to this, several suspension semi-active control algorithms have been developed for improving vehicle ride comfort and road holding. A parametric damper model has been developed, and several control algorithms have been simulated. A shock dyno experimental setup has been instrumented and some of the control algorithms have been implemented. With this, several suspension semi-active control algorithms have been developed, and statistical models have been developed for estimation of various vehicle parameters. This research can be helpful for developing accurate control algorithms for active safety systems in a vehicle.

A major challenge in tire research, is tire wear modeling. There are too many factors affecting tire wear, and part of those factors are difficult to be accurately expressed in physics and math. The objective of this research is to develop a machine learning based rubber sample wear model, and find the correlation between sample wear and tire wear. To develop this model, accurate and diverse wear data is necessary. The Dynamic Friction Tester (DFT) was designed and built for this purpose. This test machine has made it possible to collect accurate rubber sample wear data which has been validated under different conditions. Wear tests under diverse test conditions were conducted, and the test data were used to train machine learned based wear models with different algorithms, such as Neural Networks and Support Vector Machines. With test-proved wear behavior classification as additional input, and feature selection, performance of the trained rubber sample wear model has been further improved. To correlate rubber sample wear and tire wear, a set of correlation functions were developed and proposed. By validating the correlation functions using tire wear test data collected on roads, this research contributes a fast and economical approach to predict tire wear. / Doctor of Philosophy / Tire wear is closely related to the life time of tire, and excessive wear of tire can results in serious accidents. Since 1950s, research have been done to predict tire wear using experiments and empirical relations. These approaches are expensive, time consuming, and highly restricted to certain conditions. The objectives of this research is to develop a statistic based rubber sample wear model, and find the correlation between rubber sample wear and tire wear. To develop the statistic based rubber sample wear model, a test machine, named Dynamic Friction Tester (DFT) was designed and built to collect rubber sample wear data. The final rubber sample wear model is trained by wear data under 600 different test conditions. A set of mathematical equations were proposed to correlate rubber sample wear and tire wear. These equations were validated by actual tire wear data collected from lab and public roads. In combination of the statistic based rubber sample wear model and mathematical relation between rubber sample wear and tire wear, this research contributes a flexible, economical, and fast method to predict tire wear.

The vertical load on a moving tire was estimated by using accelerometers attached to the inner liner of a tire. The acceleration signal was processed to obtain the contact patch length created by the tire on the road surface. Then an appropriate equation relating the patch length to the vertical load is used to calculate the load. In order to obtain the needed data, tests were performed on a flat-track test machine at the Goodyear Innovation Center in Akron, Ohio; tests were also conducted on the road using a trailer setup at the Intelligent Transportation Laboratory in Danville, Virginia. During the tests, a number of different loads were applied; the tire-wheel setup was run at different speeds with the tire inflated to two different pressures. Tests were also conducted with a camber applied to the wheel. An algorithm was developed to estimate load using the collected data. It was then shown how the estimated load could be used in a control algorithm that applies a suitable control input to maintain the yaw stability of a moving vehicle. A two degree of freedom bicycle model was used for developing the control strategy. A linear quadratic regulator (LQR) was designed for the purpose of controlling the yaw rate and maintaining vehicle stability. / Master of Science

This research explores the idea of developing an optimal path generator that can be used in conjunction with a feedback steering controller to automate track testing experiment. This study specifically concentrates on applying optimization concepts to generate paths that meet two separate objective functions; minimum time and maximum tire forces. A three-degree-of freedom vehicle model is used to approximate the handling dynamics of the vehicle. Inputs into the vehicle model are steering angle and longitudinal force at the tire. These two variables approximate two requirements that are essential in operating a vehicle. The Third order Runge-Kutta integration routine is used to integrate vehicle dynamics equations of motion. The Optimization Toolbox of Matlab is used to evaluate the optimization algorithm. The vehicle is constrained with a series of conditions, includes, a travel within the boundaries of the track, traction force limitations at the tire, vehicle speed, and steering. The simulation results show that the optimization applied to vehicle dynamics can be useful in designing an automated track testing system. The optimal path generator can be used to develop meaningful test paths on existing test tracks. This study can be used to generate an accelerated tire wear test path, perform parametric study of suspension geometry design using vehicle dynamics handling test data, and to increase repeatability in generating track testing results. <i> Vita removed at author's request. GMc 3/13/2013</i> / Master of Science

O pneu é o único vínculo entre o veículo e o solo, é ele que transmite toda a potência e carga, e garante a dirigibilidade e condução do automóvel. A estrutura resistente de um pneu é um dos pontos de maior importância para o rendimento, tipo de aplicação e segurança. E conhecê-la é condição primária para o projeto. Pneus convencionais, via de regra, apresentam uma estrutura par de lonas cruzadas (cross-ply), dispostas em ângulos opostos, menores que 90º. Este trabalho visa avaliar as influências de uma estrutura ímpar de lonas cruzadas, em pneus convencionais. Objetiva-se com isso uma redução na matéria prima e uma otimização no tempo de processo. As influências da estrutura ímpar foram verificadas através de uma análise de elementos finitos, examinando o andamento das tensões internas na carcaça do pneu e observando a geometria da região de contato pneu/solo. Verificou-se também a variação da uniformidade utilizando-se do ensaio SAE J332 em uma máquina Akron FD90. A utilização de uma estrutura ímpar, em pneus de lonas cruzadas, acarreta numa deformação na região de contato pneu/solo, devido ao desbalanceamento de tensões nos fios da carcaça, um aumento das componentes de ply-steer e uma variação de força lateral nas componentes dinâmicas avaliadas. A utilização de uma estrutura ímpar deve ser cuidadosamente selecionada dependendo da velocidade, severidade e condições de utilização. / The tire is the only bond between the vehicle and the ground, is it that transmits all the power and load, and guarantees the driven and conduction of the automobile. The resistant structure of a tire is one of the most important factors for the efficiency, type of application and security. Knowing these parameters is the primary condition to design a tire. Conventional tires, usually have a pair structure, made of crossed plies (cross-ply) in opposite angles lesser than 90º. The present work aim to evaluate the influence of an odd cross-ply structure, in conventional tires, looking forward to a material reduction and also an optimization on time process. The influence of an odd structure was evaluated through a finite element analysis, examining the cord stress at the tire carcass and the tire/ground contact region (foot-print). The variation of the uniformity was also verified through a SAE332 test did on Akron FD90 machine. It was observed that the use of an odd structure in cross-ply tires cause a tire/ground contact region deformation, because of the unbalance internal cord stress (at the carcass), and an increase of uniformities components (ply-steer and variation of lateral force). The use of an odd structure must be carefully selected, depending on the speed, severity and condition of use.

The objective of this study is to develop a high-fidelity physics-based flexible tire model that can be fully integrated into multibody dynamics computer algorithms for use in on-road and off-road vehicle dynamics simulation without ad-hoc co-simulation techniques. Despite the fact detailed finite element tire models using explicit finite element software have been widely utilized for structural design of tires by tire manufactures, it is recognized in the tire industry that existing state-of-the-art explicit finite element tire models are not capable of predicting the transient tire force characteristics accurately under severe vehicle maneuvering conditions due to the numerical instability that is essentially inevitable for explicit finite element procedures for severe loading scenarios and the lack of transient (dynamic) tire friction model suited for FE tire models. Furthermore, to integrate the deformable tire models into multibody full vehicle simulation, co-simulation technique could be an option for commercial software. However, there exist various challenges in co-simulation for the transient vehicle maneuvering simulation in terms of numerical stability and computational efficiency. The transient tire dynamics involves rapid changes in contact forces due to the abrupt braking and steering input, thus use of co-simulation requires very small step size to ensure the numerical stability and energy balance between two separate simulation using different solvers. In order to address these essential and challenging issues on the high-fidelity flexible tire model suited for multibody vehicle dynamics simulation, a physics-based tire model using the flexible multibody dynamics approach is proposed in this study. To this end, a continuum mechanics based shear deformable laminated composite shell element is developed based on the finite element absolute nodal coordinate formulation for modeling the complex fiber reinforced rubber tire structure. The assumed natural strain (ANS) and enhanced assumed strain (EAS) approaches are introduced for alleviating element lockings exhibited in the element. Use of the concept of the absolute nodal coordinate formulation leads to various advantages for tire dynamics simulation in that (1) constant mass matrix can be obtained for fully nonlinear dynamics simulation; (2) exact modeling of rigid body motion is ensured when strains are zero; and (3) non-incremental solution procedure utilized in the general multibody dynamics computer algorithm can be directly applied without specialized updating schemes for finite rotations. Using the proposed shear deformable laminated composite shell element, a physics-based flexible tire model is developed. To account for the transient tire friction characteristics including the friction-induced hysteresis that appears in severe maneuvering conditions, the distributed parameter LuGre tire friction model is integrated into the flexible tire model. To this end, the contact patch predicted by the structural tire model is discretized into small strips across the tire width, and then each strip is further discretized into small elements to convert the partial differential equations of the LuGre tire friction model to the set of first-order ordinary differential equations. By doing so, the structural deformation of the flexible tire model and the LuGre tire friction force model are dynamically coupled in the final form of the equations, and these equations are integrated simultaneously forward in time at every time step. Furthermore, a systematic and automated procedure for parameter identification of LuGre tire friction model is developed. Since several fitting parameters are introduced to account for the nonlinear friction characteristics, the correlation of the model parameters with physical quantities are not clear, making the parameter identification of the LuGre tire friction model difficult. In the procedure developed in this study, friction parameters in terms of slip-dependent friction characteristics and adhesion parameter are estimated separately, and then all the parameters are identified using the nonlinear least squares fitting. Furthermore, the modified friction characteristic curve function is proposed for wet road conditions, in which the linear decay in friction is exhibited in the large slip velocity range. It is shown that use of the proposed numerical procedure leads to an accurate prediction of the LuGre model parameters for measured tire force characteristics under various loading and speed conditions. Furthermore, the fundamental tire properties including the load-deflection curve, the contact patch lengths, contact pressure distributions, and natural frequencies are validated against the test data. Several numerical examples for hard braking and cornering simulation are presented to demonstrate capabilities of the physics-based flexible tire model developed in this study. Finally, the physics-based flexible tire model is further extended for application to off-road mobility simulation. To this end, a locking-free 9-node brick element with the curvature coordinates at the center node is developed and justified for use in modeling a continuum soil with the capped Drucker-Prager failure criterion. Multiplicative finite strain plasticity theory is utilized to consider the large soil deformation exhibited in the tire/soil interaction simulation. In order to identify soil parameters including cohesion and friction angle, the triaxial soil test is conducted. Using the soil parameters identified including the plastic hardening parameters by the compression soil test, the continuum soil model developed is validated against the test data. Use of the high-fidelity physics-based tire/soil simulation model in off-road mobility simulation, however, leads to a very large computational model to consider a wide area of terrains. Thus, the computational cost dramatically increases as the size of the soil model increases. To address this issue, the component soil model is proposed such that soil elements far behind the tire can be removed from the equations of motion sequentially, and then new soil elements are added to the portion that the tire is heading to. That is, the soil behavior only in the vicinity of the rolling tire is solved in order to reduce the overall model dimensionality associated with the finite element soil model. It is shown that use of the component soil model leads to a significant reduction in computational time while ensuring the accuracy, making the use of the physics-based deformable tire/soil simulation capability feasible in off-road mobility simulation.

Magistrantūros studijų baigiamajame darbe pateikiami padangų riedėjimo pasipriešinimo, lauko sąlygomis, tyrimo duomenys, esant skirtingiems atraminio paviršiaus tipams (pieva, ražiena, sausas žvyrkelis), įvairioms padangų vertikalioms apkrovoms (nuo 1,4 kN iki 5,9 kN) bei skirtingiems oro slėgiams padangoje (nuo 0,5 bar iki 2,0 bar). Darbo objektas – padangos riedėjimo pasipriešinimo koeficientas, jo reikšmės kitimas, esant skirtingiems padangos, apkrovos, ir atraminio paviršiaus parametrams. Tyrimas atliktas naudojant BELCHINA 7.50L – 16 ФБел – 253 padangą. Darbo metodai: padangos tyrimams atlikti buvo suprojektuotas ir pagamintas mobilus stendas, kuris buvo tvirtinamas prie savaeigės važiuoklės T–16M. Darbo rezultatai. Oro slėgis padangoje ir vertikalios apkrovos dydis turėjo įtakos riedėjimo pasipriešinimo koeficiento reikšmių kaitai, esant skirtingiems atraminiams paviršiams (pievoje, ražienoje, sausame žvyrkelyje). Mažinant padangos slėgį riedėjimo pasipriešinimo jėga yra tiesiogiai proporcinga vertikalios apkrovos jėgai ir atvirkščiai proporcinga slėgiui padangoje. Pievoje mažiausia riedėjimo pasipriešinimo jėgos Fp reikšmė gauta esant 1,0 bar slėgiui ir padangą apkrovus 1,4 kN vertikalia apkrova (Fp = 14,375 kN). Ražienoje – esant 0,5 bar slėgiui padangoje, ir 1,4 kN vertikaliai apkrovai (Fp = 22,283 kN). Bandymą atliekant ant žvyrkelio – minimali riedėjimo pasipriešinimo jėgos Fp reikšmė buvo tada, kai padangą veikė 1,4 kN vertikali apkrova ir oro slėgis... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The Master’s thesis presents findings of the study of tire rolling resistance under field conditions with different types of support surfaces (grassland, stubble, dry gravel-road), different vertical loads of tires (from 1.4 kN to 5.9 kN) and different air pressures in a tire (from 0.5 bar to 2.0 bar). Object of the thesis – tire rolling resistance coefficient f, change of its values with different parameters of a tire, load and support surface. The study was carried out using the tire BELCHINA 7.50L – 16 ФБел – 253. Methods of the thesis: in order to carry out the tire study, mobile stand was designed and manufactured and attached to self-propelled chassis T – 16M. Results of the thesis. Air pressure in the tire and the value of vertical load influenced the change of rolling resistance coefficient with different support surfaces (grassland, stubble, dry gravel-road). At the tire pressure being decreased, the rolling resistance force was directly proportional to the force of vertical load and is inversely proportional to pressure in the tire. The lowest value of rolling resistance force Fp on grassland was obtained at the pressure of 1,0 bar and vertical load of 1,4 kN on the tire (Fp = 14,375 kN). On stubble – at the pressure of 0,5 bar in the tire and vertical load of 1,4 kN (Fp = 22,283 kN). When the test was performed on dry gravel-road, the minimal value of rolling resistance force Fp was when the tire was affected by vertical load of 1,4 kN and air pressure in the... [to full text]