Numerical simulation on fatigue life of truck radial tire

The fatigue durability of tires has great influence on driving safety of vehicles. In high-speed driving, the sudden fatigue failure of truck radial tire with belt edge separation usually results in serious traffic accidents. Therefore, to improve tire endurance, it is necessary to analyze tire crack growth behavior and predict tire fatigue lifetime. Based on the fracture mechanics, local crack models are established in the fatigue failure risky location of the tire by using global-local technique in finite element software ABAQUS. It is assumed that a flaw exists inside the tire in the local model. Using the analysis of the local model, a study of the energy release rate is performed in the crack region and used to determine the crack growth rate. According to the J-integral calculation results, the fatigue life of the tire is calculated by tire fatigue life formula and compared with test results. In addition, in this work, the influences of different tire structures on tire fatigue life are also investigated. Based on energy release rate and fatigue lifetime, optimal belt edge structure is chosen for the design of truck radial tire.