EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF TIRE-ROADWAY INTERACTION

An experimental investigation was undertaken to discover which one of a number of postulated tire-roadway interaction laws is best suited for the prediction of vehicle behavior. Motion of the rear assembly of a motorcycle was studied when the frame was constrained to rotate about a fixed vertical axis while the wheel was in contact with a moving belt. This led to plots of frame angle versus time that could be compared with corresponding plots produced by using four analytical models of tire-roadway interaction (coulomb friction, modified coulomb friction, classical slip law, and modified classical slip law). The first model was found to match the experimental data better than the other models.