Design, Construction and Validation of a Portable Tire Test Rig

Tire force and moment testing is a valuable way of quantifying the performance of a tire. The data collected from such testing is also used by many researchers for vehicle dynamic simulation studies as well as chassis control system development. Although various studies have claimed correlation between data from rolling road type machines and road testing trailers, the claim only extends for on-road conditions. Many military vehicles as well as agricultural vehicles operate in an environment which requires new levels of tire test data. This paper will discuss the design and testing of a portable trailer tire test rig. This rig was conceived and constructed for use on both on- and off-road driving surfaces and is also fitted for wet-road testing. The rig will eventually be used to collect tire data on various tire sizes both on and off-road on various road surfaces, such as grass, asphalt, concrete, and gravel for varying speeds, pressures, loads, and slip angles. The data will be used to develop a modified Pacejka Magic Formula Tire Model that can be used for conducting simulation in both on and off-road conditions.