TYRE MODELS FOR THE STUDY OF INPLANE DYNAMICS

A flexible ring model of the tyre is presented in this paper. The natu ral frequencies and mode shapes of the tyre are obtained from this rin g model. The vibration transmission properties of the tyre between the tyre-road contact point and die wheel axle are analysed. Based on the results of this flexible ring model, a simplified tyre model is devel oped, which is able to describe the zeroth and first order vibration m odes of the tyre. Residual stiffnesses are introduced to take into acc ount the contribution of higher order modes on the total deformation o f the tyre. A tyre-road interface model based on the well-known brush model is also developed and integrated into the simplified tyre model. The parameters of both models are established for two different tyres . Finally some numerical results are presented.