Tire-contaminated surface interaction: A literature review

This paper presents a literature review on the state of the art in modelling and experimenting with radial passenger car tires operating on contaminated road surfaces. To successfully model and experiment with radial passenger car tires, validation is required for the tire itself, material interactions, contaminant modelling, contact theories, and combined interactions. This work presents a review of previous studies. The review includes modelling and validation of passenger car tires in the finite element environment. Both static and dynamic validation techniques are reviewed, focusing on tire footprint, vertical stiffness, lateral stiffness, critical vertical frequency, and combined slip conditions. The modelling and physical interactions of contaminants such as sand, clay, ice, gravel, and snow are also presented for tire interactions on both on-road and off-road surfaces. Techniques such as Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH), Finite Element Analysis (FEA), and Discrete Element Methods (DEM) are employed. The contact algorithms used or derived are also reviewed, as they are vital to the accurate prediction of contact forces between two objects. The contact algorithms presented are both physical and modelled, using contact theories such as the Hertzian contact theory, point contact models, and Lumped LeGre Friction models. Additionally, studies including tire-road and tire-terrain interaction characteristics are presented and discussed. These studies vary loading conditions through speed, loading, road surface, and temperature. Furthermore, research on hydroplaning prediction is presented, as water is a commonly found surface contaminant and presents a threat to all drivers. Finally, this review discusses shortcomings and best techniques as they pertain to winter-contaminated road surface modelling with tire interactions.