Run-flat Tire Optimization Using Response Surface Method and Genetic Algorithm

Ride comfort is one of the major factors in evaluating the performance of the vehicle. Tire is closely related to the ride comfort of the vehicle as the only parts in contact with the road surface directly. Vertical stiffness which is one of the parameters to evaluate the tire performance is great influence on the ride comfort. In general, the lower the vertical stiffness, the ride comfort is improved. Research for improving the ride comfort has been mainly carried out by optimizing the shape of the pneumatic tire. However, demand for safety of the vehicle has been increased recently such as a run-flat tire which is effective in safety improvement. But a run-flat tire have trouble in practical use because of poor ride comfort than general tire. Therefore, In this paper, the research was carried out for improving the ride comfort through the optimization of the SIR shape inside a run-flat tire. Meta-model was generated by using the design of experiment and it was able to reduce the time for the finite element analysis of optimization. In addition, Shape optimization for improving the ride comfort was performed by using the genetic algorithm which is one of the global optimization techniques.