Experiment Research On The Structure Design Of Solid PU Tires Based On Finite Element Analysis

The solid tire is a widely used in industrial forklifts, tubs and port cranes for itsoutstanding performance in the environment of low-speed and high-load. As the rapiddevelopment of automotive industry, people try to search for better materials formanufacturing solid tires. It is believed by many experts and scholars that the polyurethanetire will take place the ordinary rubber tire for it has plenty of advantages compared to thelatter. Considering that the heat generating in the course of vehicle’s running is the main causeof solid tire’s damage, researches about the polyurethane tire’s temperature variation and therelative factors are very meaningful to this kind of tire’s using and optimal design.We introduce the finite element method to simulate and analyze the PU tire’s temperaturevariation. In order to get a well result from the computing, some mechanical and thermalperformance parameters are needed. First of all, a series of uniaxial tensile tests are carriedout to establish a accurate constitutive modal of polyurethane. Then the thermal conductivitywhich is tested by the steady-state method and the specific heat capacity which is tested byDSC are obtained to use for the temperature FEM analysis.This paper is based on Abaqus, which is an accurate FEM soft. We made a secondarydevelopment using HETVAL user-subroutine to define the inner heat source and applied it tothe modal. Compared the simulating result with the measured temperature, it is found that theFEM modal can predict the temperature variation without much deviation. Both thesimulating result and measurement result show that the highest temperature area is in themiddle of the tire section and temperature in all areas increases as the running speed and loadincrease.In order to obtain the temperature variation in different conditions, we designed a smallmileage testing machine to real-time monitor and collect the data of the temperature andpressure. After a in-depth analysis to these data, we find many undiscovered relations amongthe tire’s using conditions and temperature variation.