Physics-Based Deformable Tire–Soil Interaction Model for Off-Road Mobility Simulation and Experimental Validation

Abstract

A physics-based deformable tire–soil interaction simulation capability that can be fully integrated into the monolithic multibody dynamics computer algorithm is developed by extending a deformable tire model based on the flexible multibody dynamics approach to off-road mobility simulations with a moving soil patch technique and it is validated against test data. A locking-free nine-node brick element is developed for modeling large plastic soil deformation using the multiplicative finite strain plasticity theory along with the capped Drucker–Prager failure criterion. To identify soil parameters including cohesion and friction angle, the triaxial compression test is carried out, and the soil model developed is validated against the test data. In addition to the component level validation for the tire and soil models, the tire–soil interaction simulation capability developed in this study is validated against the soil bin mobility test results. The tire forces and rolling resistance coefficients predicted by the simulation model agree well with the test results. It is shown that effect of the wheel loads and tire inflation pressures is well captured in the simulation model. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that the moving soil patch technique, with which soil behavior only in the vicinity of the rolling tire is solved to reduce the soil model dimensionality, leads to a significant reduction in computational time, thereby enabling use of the high-fidelity physics-based tire–soil interaction model in the large-scale off-road mobility simulation.

Document Details

Document Type
Pub Defense Publication
Publication Date
Nov 01, 2017
Source ID
10.1115/1.4037994

Entities

People

  • Hiroki Yamashita
  • Hiroyuki Sugiyama
  • Mustafa Alsaleh
  • Paramsothy Jayakumar

Organizations

  • Caterpillar Inc.
  • United States Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center
  • University of Iowa

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Engineering

Readers

  • Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
  • Electrical Engineering
  • Molecular and Cellular Biology