Limitations and Opportunities for Rubber Friction Modeling in Tire

Supporting the fast development of modern car tires, a number of sophisticated advanced simulation-tools are developed in order to guaranty an efficient and safe conception and design phase. The more a model is based on physical principles the better related descriptors can drive to innovation.

The correct evaluation of input-parameter for such physical-simulation-tools will guaranty precise result generation and efficient prediction by using a minimum amount of material, time and cost, but being as close as possible to the working area of applications.

We concentrated in our analysis on the evaluation of viscoelastic properties, coupling of elements and frictional interaction between rubber surface and asphalt. The view on frictional interaction is fundamental for tire grip and also for wear mechanism of rubber on rough surface.

Detailed analysis on the supporting test- methods are pointing out potential and limitations on the right usage of the input parameter. We have at first to leave the traditional laboratory methods behind us, which were mainly designed for statistical control of processing. But even more important is to ensure that the laboratory samples, used for the creation process of basic parameter, represent the chemical and physical properties of the final product which follows in reality a totally different process flow.

Within our studies we analyzed 3 main issues that risk a big difference between simulation and reality when measured parameters are used for prediction of tire friction.

-       DMTA, different methods in comparison with sample preparation process

-       Tire as composite, co-vulcanisation and migration

-       Transfer of road asphalt characteristics to physical descriptor