Abstract
A method for determining the effect of suspension dynamics on tire wear has been developed. Typical city cycle maneuvers are defined by instrumented vehicle testing and data in the form of forward velocities and steer angles are used as an input to an ADAMS computer model of the vehicle. A simulation of the maneuvers generates a tire's operating environment in the form of normal load, slip, and camber variations, which contain all the subtle effects of the vehicle's suspension, steering, and handling characteristics.
A cyclic repetition of the tire's operating environment is constructed and used to control an MTS Flat-Trac machine. In this way, accelerated tire wear can be generated in the laboratory which is directly related to the design features of the vehicle's suspension and steering systems.
