Tire Change Influence on Handling Performance

<div class="section abstract"><div class="htmlview paragraph">The tire is one of the components that is most influent on vehicle dynamics behavior and is a part that suffer wear and needs to be replaced. In this case what a doubt is always recurrent, keep the same tire or change the model or brand but keeping the sizes. Some vehicle owners want to change not only the worn-out tire but change its sizes for aesthetic proposals. There is a belief on the tire market if keeps the same outer diameter is acceptable.</div><div class="htmlview paragraph">The proposal for this study is to compare the handling performance considering different sizes and models or brands of tires. For this study a vehicle modeled in multibody representing the vehicle mass inertias, suspension mechanisms kinematics and components dampers and stiffness will be the adopted tool.</div><div class="htmlview paragraph">The constant radius and constant speed steady state maneuver defined by standard SAE J266 [<span class="xref">1</span>] was performed, on the virtual environment, changing the tire properties and comparing the key handling performance metrics as understeer gradient, roll gradient and steering sensitivity. With the interpretation of theses metrics is possible to understand if the tire change in terms of size or brand could influence on vehicle handling performance.</div></div>