Study Of Thermomechanical Coupling Issue On Radial Truck Tire

With the rapid developments of automotive industry and highways, increase of vehicle running speed, much higher requirements are proposed on the performance of tire. Tire is one of the most basic parts in vehicle, bearing load, transferring torque. In the rolling process, the tire is deformed by the external load, which causes the increase of tire internal temperature, decreasing the strength of rubber materials. Therefore, the tire temperature is one of the main reasons affecting the service life of tire. The study of tire rolling temperature distribution is helpful in guiding the design of the tire structure and rubber formulations, reducing the rolling resistance of tire, reducing the cost of scientific research, and improving the value of scientific research and economic benefits.In this study, based on the finite element software Abaqus, the mechanical and thermal experiment data of tire materials, the models of 12R22.5 truck radial tire for predicting the stress and temperature fields were established. Based on the measured data of tire under static loading, the numerical results were verified and analyzed.In order to obtain the stress-strain curves of tire rubber materials, the experiments of uniaxial tension and biaxial tension tests were conducted. The constitutive parameters of rubbers were obtained by fitting the Yeoh model to the experimental data. The thermal properties of rubbers, such as conductivity, specific heat, and dynamic mechanical properties, such as loss factor and density, were also measured by using reasonable experimental method.According to one-way thermo-mechanical coupling idea, the temperature field calculation of truck radial tire is modeled by three modules, which include deformation analysis module, dissipation energy module and heat transfer analysis module. In deformation analysis module, tire assembly, inflation, loading and steady state rolling were simulated. Heat generation ratio was calculated by mathematic software MATLAB which is used to analyze the equivalent strain and stress by means of Fourier transform. In heat transfer analysis, the keyword of *CFLUX was used to define the heat resource in tire. And the heat transfer coefficients of the inner and outer surface were applied.According to the above results of finite element analysis, the basic characteristics of steady state temperature distribution and the influence of the related parameters were discussed and analyzed. The results show that the loading, inflation pressure, speed and angle of camber have great influence on the temperature field of rolling tire. The high temperature regions of the tire are located in the shoulders and the neighborhood of beads. The maximum temperature of tire increases with the increasing of speed and loading, but decreases with the increasing of inflation pressure. Under inclined rolling condition, the temperature on the inclined side is higher than another side, and the maximum temperature increases with the increase of camber angle.