Realistic tires in virtual vehicle tests
CAE News |
 | Long before a car rolls off the line, car manufacturers test the performance of the vehicle virtually. A challenge is modelling the tires, because there behavior is complex and nonlinear. Scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Mathematics - ITWM model the tires is shells. First, the researchers calculate individual shells for each functional layer of the real tire. Then they combined the layers into a single shell. This modeling is also used for the side wall. The method offers good accuracy with short computing times. Now the researchers also include temperature. Because of the tire work during driving, the tire warms up which changes its mechanical properties. The researchers feed the results from the structural calculation in the temperature model that simulate how the heat spreads in the tires and then link the temperature results back into the structural model. The Swiss Formula 1 team Sauber wants to use the new model in the future to make its racing cars even faster.
More Information: itwm.fraunhofer.de/press |