Influence of sand moisture content on mixed service truck tire performance using advanced hybrid techniques

Abstract

This paper focuses on investigating the effect of sand moisture content on the performance of a Mixed Service Drive (MSD) truck tire of size 315/80R22.5. The truck tire is modeled using multiple layers and materials within a Finite Element Analysis (FEA) environment. Moist sand is modeled using the Smoothed-Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) technique. Initially, dry sand is modeled using a hydrodynamic elastic-plastic material, while water is modeled using the Murnaghan equation of state. The numerical interaction between the sand and water is identified using Darcy’s law. The moisture content of the sand is then calibrated using direct shear-strength tests and validated against physical measurements conducted in a laboratory under similar sand conditions. The tire-sand interaction is defined using a hybrid FEA-SPH interaction model, and a non-symmetric node-to-segment contact with edge treatment contact algorithm. The tire tractive performance including tractive effort, motion resistance coefficient, and tire sinkage was examined under various operating conditions, including different sand moisture content levels and tire longitudinal speeds.