THE DYNAMIC FINITE ELEMENT MODEL OF NON-PNEUMATIC TIRE UNDER COMFORTABLE RIDING EVALUATION

Abstract

The Non-Pneumatic Tire (NPT) has design potential to have desired mechanical characteristic
upon usage requirements. The NPT also has no restriction on inflation pressure, maintenance, and less damage
possibilities due to flat while driving. The optimum design of NPT to have required load carrying capacity and
vertical stiffness can be easily achieved by mean of static Finite Element Method (FEM) with appropriated
material models. However the models to predict dynamic response such as tire structure to road pavement
interaction, shock absorption and ride comfort are still needed. This paper aims to develop FEM to study
dynamic characteristics and evaluate the ride comfort property of the NPT. The FEM of NPT, which composed
of Tread band and Spokes, was model using 3D hexagonal and 2D Quadrilateral elements respectively. The
rebar elements and tying equation were used to model steel belt layers of the NPT. The visco-hyperelastic
constitutive model was used to model the mechanical behavior which depends on time of the NPT’s
components. The FEM of NPT was then assigned to traverse across cleats with different heights to study the
effect of obstacle on tire-road interaction and dynamic response of NPT. The impact force history and
deformation behavior of NPT at any given time was analyzed. The results were compared to discuss the validity
of the model to capture important dynamic characteristic that considered useful in designing of NPT to have
ride quality challenging the commonly used pneumatic tire.