A new approach to model tyre/road contact

In the Structural Dynamics and Acoustics group at the University of Twente, we aim to develop a quantitative tyre/road noise model. An essential part of this model is an accurate contact algorithm which is fast enough to simulate tyre vibrations up to the acoustic frequencies. In this paper we present a contact algorithm, describing the contact between a tyre and a road surface, which has the potential to be made very fast using the multigrid techniques developed in the field of elasto-hydrodynamic lubrication. For the development of the algorithm a flexible ring model is used to describe the tyre. The friction model is based on Coulomb’s friction. We present (quasi-)static results obtained from the algorithm for various friction coefficients, as well as frictionless results for a rotating tyre. The vibrations of the tyre obtained by this model have been used to calculate the radiated sound field by means of a boundary element program (BEMSYS).