A Numerical Investigation of Soil-Tire Interaction Using CEL and SPH Methods

Abstract The performance prediction of a tire on a rigid surface like a road can be done with appropriate friction law, which is relatively simple. However, in the case of off-road conditions, the terrain properties also affect the tire performance significantly. Therefore, accurate modeling of terrain is required for optimizing the key tire and vehicle design parameters. Soil, being a granular and elastic-plastic material, is difficult to model with traditional numerical methods due to its high deformation and material separation. Researchers have employed meshed and meshless methods for modeling high deformations occurring during the soil-tire interaction process. It was observed that meshed methods have numerical stability issues due to the accumulation of high plastic deformations in soil and the complex contact interface between tire and soil. The meshless methods can address these shortcomings, but they still lack extensive validation, especially for soil tire interaction simulations. In this study, a non-cohesive soil (Norfolk Sandy Loam) is modeled using meshed (Coupled Eulerian-Lagrangian) and meshless (Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics) methods. The Drucker-Prager material model was parameterized for soil modeling based on soil strength test results. The methodology for setting up soil-rigid tire numerical simulation for both numerical approaches is developed. Using experimental data, the numerical accuracy of both methods is assessed. The realistic stress data and good prediction of tire traction relative to experimental data suggest using the proposed methodology in future studies of tire-deformable soil interaction.