Vehicle Turn Simulation Using FE Tire model

A simplified FE tire model has capability to solve a large deformation of a tire on a vehicle running simulation with acceptable computation time. We tried to simulate a vehicle cornering by using simplified FE tire models and a vehicle model which has a detailed kinematical structure of suspensions.1 Introduction Introduction of CAE in an automobile design is progressing in various fields, and, recently, to also make it run an automobile full model can be begun. CAE with high accuracy is effective in curtailment of a test vehicle, or the fault dissolution of a design early stage, and durability, driving stability, and a ride comfort are also becoming the object. In order to perform the run simulation of vehicles, it is important to predict transfer of the load from a road surface with sufficient accuracy, and a highly precise tire model is needed first. Therefore, it becomes an effective means to carry out the structural analysis of the tire by FEM in a run simulation. However, if the tire has complicated structure containing a fiber, steel wires including rubber, etc. and tends to model these, it will become the model of a 100,000 element scale which is used for tire makers. Moreover, since a simulation so that the target revolution of this paper treats not the phenomenon of 100msec units like the crash simulation which LS-DYNA has so far treated but the phenomenon of a second unit, for the moment, the run simulation of the vehicles using the tire model of a 100,000 element scale is impossible by calculation time as a matter of fact. Then, FE tire model simplified on a small scale so that a run simulation could be calculated in realistic time was developed[1,2,3]. Furthermore, improvement is added to this simplified tire model, and signs that a tire changes greatly on the curbstone riding raising problem which is equivalent to the shock on-the-strength problem of vehicles can be analyzed now with sufficient accuracy [4]. In this paper, improvement is further added to the simplified tire model, and the result which tried the rapid turn simulation of vehicles which changes a tire greatly according to the weight of vehicles, vehicle inertia, and friction with a road surface is reported.