INVESTIGATION OF THE TIRE/PAVEMENT INTERACTION MECHANISM: PHASE III FINAL REPORT. VOLUME 2: DYNAMIC RESPONSE MODELING OF THE INFLATED TIRE STRUCTURE

The interaction mechanism of heavy vehicle tires with road surface pavement is developed as a force, excitation, response problem. Results are presented in three volumes which report tire/pavement contact pressures, structural vibration response, and surface vibration acoustic modeling methods, respectively. The results of each report provide detailed information that may be utilized for tire/pavement evaluation by the methods developed in the subsequent reports. In this report, Volume 2, a three-dimensional, orthotropic, nonlinear dynamic finite element shell model is developed for evaluation of the damped vibration response of the tire. The inflated model is validated for structural response by experimental methods. Nonlinearities due to inflation and resulting prestress are shown to significantly increase structural wavespeeds. The inflated model is subjected to direct time step integration for dynamic response to an array of fluctuating input forces. The model predicts tire dynamic response for vibration and acoustic evaluation at frequencies to 1,000 Hz.