ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT: While there are many tyre and vehicle dependent factors that affect the rolling resistance, the road properties play also an influential role in the overall resistance on the vehicle. The aim of this study is to develop a model that can estimate the effect of road roughness on rolling resistance of tyres where both the texture-dependent and independent factors are contributing to overall rolling resistance. In this paper, a method based on the self-affine fractal surfaces is used to model realistic road characteristics in order to couple it with a brush based tyre model to be able to study the influence of road roughness on tyre rolling resistance. The simulation results suggest that the rolling resistance increases with increased RMS-value and both the macro-and the micro-texture have an influence on the rolling resistance while the macro-texture effect is more influential. The results of this paper can be related to the estimation of fuel economy on different road textures, from macro-texture to micro-texture and further optimisation of road surfaces.
