Author(s)

Hyun Chul Jung, Woo Cheol Park, Kyoung Moon Jeong^*

R&D Center, Kumho Tire Co. Inc., Yongin, South Korea.

The friction of road surface covered by snow or ice is very low and that results in reducing vehicle traction forces and potential traffic accidents. In general, to establish a master curve on a rubber-ice friction model is difficult because the ice surface, being not far removed from its melting point, reacts itself very sen-sitively to pressure, speed, and temperature changes. In this paper, an accepta-ble frictional interaction model was implemented to finite element method to rationally examine the frictional interaction behavior on ice between the tire and the road surface. The formula of friction characteristic according to tem-perature and sliding velocity on the ice surface was applied for tire traction analysis. Numerical results were verified by comparing the outdoor test data and it was confirmed to indicate similar correlation. It is found that the rub-ber-ice friction model will be useful for the improvement of the ice traction performance of tire.

Tire, Ice Surface, Finite Element Method, Frictional Model, Temperature, Slid-ing Velocity

Jung, H. , Park, W. and Jeong, K. (2018) Finite Element Analysis of Tire Traction Using a Rubber-Ice Friction Model. Open Journal of Applied Sciences, 8, 495-505. doi: 10.4236/ojapps.2018.811040.