Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
DETC2011-4
ABSTRACT 1. INTRODUCTION
Recently, the development of non-pneumatic tires (NPT) such The development of non-pneumatic tires (NPT) such as the
as the Michelin Tweel is receiving increased attention due to Michelin Tweel [1] is receiving increased attention due to
potential advantages over pneumatic tires, including potential advantages over pneumatic tires. NPT concepts must
characteristics of rolling resistance (RR). This study focuses on take into account the critical characteristics of a tire namely
the design of a NPT based on properties of vertical stiffness and mass, stiffness, durability, surface contact pressure and rolling
rolling energy loss. Using a finite element (FE) model, a resistance. The NPT concept described in [1] consists of a
parametric study is conducted to study the effect on vertical composite ring, with at least two circumferential
stiffness and RR response considering two design variables; (a) reinforcements separated by a radial distance. The material
thickness of the spokes, and, (b) the shear band thickness of the between the reinforcements is called a shear beam, since during
NPT. Using the two geometric variables, a design of rolling the material deforms primarily in pure shear. It is the
experiments (DOE) is performed to study the effect on both RR design of this shear beam which allows for the potential for a
and vertical displacement. Results from the DOE are used to relatively uniform surface contact distribution with the ground
create response surface models (RSM) for both the objective under load. A uniform distribution of spoke pairs is designed to
function (minimal RR) and a constraint on vertical deflection. connect the ring to the hub of the wheel. The spokes and ring
The analytical RSM function is optimized for minimizing the are manufactured in a mold with imbedded reinforcements. A
rolling loss subjected to the given constraint. In addition a rubber tread is bonded to the outer ring to provide traction. The
design sensitivity study is performed to evaluate the influence spokes and the shear beam use polyurethane (PU) materials
of the design variables on the output response. Results indicate which exhibit less viscoelastic behavior than synthetic rubber
that both variables have significant effect on RR, with the shear materials used in pneumatic tires, thus given the NPT potential
band thickness having the greater effect. for less energy loss during rolling. The use of hyperelastic
materials such as PU is important because of their shearing
Key Words: Rolling resistance (RR), Non-Pneumatic Tire properties which contribute to the flexibility, energy loss,
(NPT), Design of Experiments, Optimization damping and the pressure distribution between the NPT and the
road. Rolling resistance of the tire is the most important factor
contributing to the vehicle fuel consumption and it also raises
i 1 i i
gi τi gi τi
Where λi (i=1,2, and 3) are the stretches in the principal 1 0.125 0.002 0.2 0.002
directions. Hyperelastic property of synthetic rubber for the
tread is also represented by the Ogden strain energy potential. 2 0.125 0.02 0.2 0.02
The experimental data (nominal stress versus strain of uniaxial,
biaxial and planar) are used to define the model [14]. The
3 0.125 0.2 0.2 0.2
hyperelastic material coefficients of the PU and synthetic
rubber are shown in Table 2. An initial shear modulus of PU
under simple shear is 11.3MPa. The initial shear modulus of
synthetic rubber under simple shear is 6.78 MPa.
Time domain viscoelasticity is defined for finite strain 4. LOADS AND BOUNDARY CONDITIONS
applications where the rate dependent elastic response is
defined along with the hyperelastic material models. The objective of the problem is to numerically measure the
Viscoelastic behavior is defined by a shear relaxation modulus rolling resistance per unit distance FR and the vertical deflection
expressed in terms of a Prony series given by the equation of the NPT for different values of the geometric design
variables. The NPT is subjected to a vertical load of magnitude
N
3000 N at the hub center and rolled to a distance of 1 meter.
GR (t ) G0 1 g i (1 et / i )
P
The analysis consists of two steps namely the Load and the Roll
k 1 step. In the first step, the static vertical load is applied, and
where GR(t) is the shear relaxation modulus, Go is the maintained in the second step. For the second-step a quasi-
instantaneous shear modulus of a material, and gip and τip are static analysis is performed to study the time dependent
parameters used to fit experimental data. The data is given in viscoelastic material response in the NPT. Two boundary
the ascending order for three terms (N=3) in the Prony series. conditions are defined namely the ground and the center (wheel
The Prony series constants for PU and synthetic rubber are hub center of the NPT). In first step, ‘Center’ is set free in y
shown in the direction and rests of the DOF’s are constrained. In the second
step, rotation DOF (around z direction) and translational DOF
Table 3. (y direction) are set free. In addition to that the translation DOF
(x direction) is set to a value of 1 meter. ‘Ground’ is
Table 2. Material parameters of the Ogden hyperelastic
constrained in all degrees of freedom for both the analysis
strain function for the PU and synthetic rubber [13, 14]
steps. The energy loss Wd is numerically measured from the
ALLCD history output in ABAQUS. ALLCD is the energy
Poly Urethane (PU) Synthetic rubber dissipated due the creep effect of the viscoelastic materials.
The vertical deflection at the hub center is measured from field
outputs.
i
µi αi µi αi
5. PARAMETRIC STUDY
1 13.546 1.513 13.356 1.633
Before performing the optimization, a parametric study is
2 -2.338 2.212 -6.631 1.9 conducted to determine the effects of each geometric design
variable, spoke thickness and shear band thickness, on the
3 0.093 -2.471 0.058 -2.456 rolling resistance (RR) response FR, and vertical stiffness
defined by K = (3000 N) / where is the vertical deflection
of the hub center. Vertical stiffness and RR are important
design parameter of the NPT as it influences the vehicle
performance characteristics. Hence it is important to design the
45 25
Rolling resistance (N)
40 20
35 15
3 3.5 4 4.5 5
30
Spoke thickness (mm)
25
350
300 Figure 5 Variation of NPT vertical stiffness with respect to the
change in spoke thickness (constant shear band thickness = 12.7
250
mm)
200
150 6. OPTIMIZATION PROBLEM STATEMENT
100
10 15 20 A goal of the present work is to conduct a geometric size
optimization of the shear band thickness and spoke thickness of
Shear band thickness (mm) the NPT by minimizing the RR subjected to a constraint on
vertical stiffness as measured by the vertical deflection.
Figure 3 Variation of NPT vertical stiffness with respect to the Objective Function: Minimize FR
change in shear band thickness (constant spoke thickness = 3mm)
60
FEA Models 50
40
30
20
Figure 6 Flowchart representing the Optimization process 10
Design of experiments (DOE) is conducted to observe the Figure 7 Probability plot for the Thickness of the spokes
responses of RR and vertical deflection for combinations of the
design variables. The DOE technique used here is Latin
Hypercube. Latin hypercube is the multi-dimensional extension The effect of the design variables on the response parameter is
of Latin squares sampling method [15]. Initially, the Latin studied using the Pareto chart of standardized effects [16]. It
Hypercube design is performed for ten design points. The determines the absolute value of the effects which is indicated
by the red line on the chart. Effect of any parameter which
AB
35
Load (N)
the spoke thickness and the shear band thickness used in a 2500
previous design were 4 mm and 12.7 mm, respectively [8]. 2000
Using the reference values, the deflection was 8.01 mm with a
RR of 34.25N. Different results can be achieved by setting 1500
Original configuration
60 0.12
Rolling resistance (N)
50 0.1
40
0.08
30
0.06
20
0.04
10
0.02
0
1000 2000 3000 4000 0
25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65
Load (N) Contact Patch (mm)