The FTire Tire Model Family

Being a typical representative of detailed mechanical tire models ‘below’ true FEM models, the author’s model family FTire (Flexible Ring Tire Model) will be discussed in greater detail here. FTire development started in 1998, using certain ideas and numerical concepts of the author’s ‘coarse-mesh’ FE model DNSTire ([1], [2], [4]) and the spatial non-linear ‘rigid-ring’ model BRIT ([3], [5], [6]). This first version of FTire has been essentially improved since then. It is one of the advanced tire models of MSC.ADAMSTM, and is as well implemented into several ‘in-house’ simulation programs at different companies, and as a sub-system block in MATLAB/SIMULINKTM. Recently, FTire has been completed by a new rigid-ring model (called RTire), and a redesign of DNS-Tire (called FETire). RTire, FTire, and FETire together set up the FTire Model Family. FTire and FETire are discussed below.