Tire/Sand Interaction Modeling: An Analytical and Empirical Study

Principal Investigators
Joshua D. Summers, Sherrill Biggers, Paul Joseph (Clemson U.)

Industry
Steve Cron (Michelin North America)

Government
Mike Letherwood (TARDEC)

The objective of this project is to develop:

• Analytical extensions and corrections to established models (e.g., Bekker Models) to correct for sand/tire interaction through “micro grousers” such as on-tire sand or textile treads.
• Simplified numerical models of sand/tire interaction that can be used for rapid concept evaluation of novel tread solutions.
• Conceptual solutions to improve sand/tire traction interaction for dedicated missions that are prototyped, experimentally explored, and initially validated through simulation and analysis.
• Development of full numerical treatment using ABAQUS of sand/tire interaction taking into account compressibility of sand in dry and wet conditions.

We believe that these modeling approaches, with analytical models and numerical models, will provide rapid simulation and analysis tools that can be used to explore new mission specific tire tread concepts. As new mission requirements develop (temperature cycles, speeds, loads, etc.) concepts of treads can then be directly modeled and integrated into sand-tire interaction models to provide more realistic simulations.