ABSTRACT
A general mechanical model has been developed for the analysis of rolling steel belted tires under transient speed and acceleration conditions. The belt circumference of the tire model is subdivided into an (externally) unloaded area and a loaded contact patch. The patch is subdivided into slip and non-slip zones. Two deformation fields describe bending and extensional strain of the steel belt. The tread deformations are governed separately by shear and pressure fields to be determined along the tire circumference. The model is applicable to both even and uneven road surfaces. The principle of virtual work is applied to obtain partial differential equations of motion for the belt and the tread. In addition, transient slip and non-slip conditions are provided for the contact patch area. A discretization in space and time, based upon finite differences and Newmark’s integration method, is applied to solve the equations of motion along with the boundary and slip conditions. Preliminary computer results for some special cases are presented.
