A flexible ring model of the tyre is presented in this paper. The natural frequencies and mode shapes of the tyre are obtained from this ring model. The vibration transmission properties of the tyre between the tyre-road contact point and the wheel axle are analyzed. Based on the results of this flexible ring model, a simplified tyre model is developed, which is able to describe the zeroth and first order vibration modes of the tyre. Residual stiffnesses are introduced to take into account the contribution of higher order modes on the total deformation of the tyre. A tyre-road interface model based on the well-known brush model is also developed and integrated into the simplified tyre model. The parameters of both models are established for two different tires. Finally some numerical results are presented. (A)
Abstract