An Integrated Approach for Friction and Wear Simulation of Tire Tread Rubber. Part II: Wear Test, Characterization, and Modeling

Abstract

On the basis of Part I, Part II continues further research on the wear of tire tread rubber. A test scheme composed of various combined conditions that are widely ranged in energy dissipation is developed. The wear rate and temperature increase are described by exponential energetic models. Coupled with the unified friction model, a well-demonstrated wearing simulation of the rubber wheel is proposed. The wear rate for the rolling of axisymmetric structure is derived, and a nonequal wear increment is proposed according to the maximum allowable wear depth of the surface elements, which act as a criterion for calculating the increment size. In order to maintain high quality of the worn mesh, the boundary displacement method is employed to reposition the interior nodes of the finite element model as well as the surface elements. The computed wear rates are roughly in agreement with the test results. As a further illustration, the tread wear simulation of an axisymmetric tire containing only longitudinal grooves is conducted. For the first time, the evolution rules of wear contour of the axisymmetric tire are revealed, and the linear variation of worn mass with the rolling distance is consistent with the experimental results reported in literature.