Prediction of the Frictional Power Distribution in the Tire Contact Patch Based on an Empirical Tire Model and an Artificial Neural Network

To predict and prevent uneven tire wear in addition to a reduction of overall tire wear, it is essential to estimate not only the total amount of wear but also how the wear is distributed across the tire width. This requires knowledge of the frictional power distribution in the tire contact patch, which is the basis for calculating tire wear using a wear law. Usually, only 3D structural tire models can generate such distributed contact results. However, they involve high computational costs and cannot be used for comprehensive optimization of a vehicle’s suspension system with respect to tire wear characteristics. Hence, this contribution presents a methodology on how to accelerate the prediction of the frictional power distribution using two components: The structural tire model is replaced by an empirical tire model that on its own is not able to generate distributed contact results. Therefore, an artificial neural network is trained to predict the desired contact results from the kinematic quantities calculated by the empirical tire model. In the initial training phase, both components are fitted to data generated by the original complex tire model. After training, the empirical tire model can replace the structural tire model in vehicle simulations, resulting in significantly shorter calculation times. The simulation results are fed into the artificial neural network, which predicts the frictional power distributions over the tire width with negligible additional effort. Overall, the methodology reduces calculation time for the prediction of tire wear based on virtual test drives to approximately 25% of the time needed when using structural tire models.