Rubber Abradability as a Tire Wear Indicator: Effect of Viscoelasticity Elucidated through Finite Element Analysis

• Abradability of rubber was obtained by modified Akron abrader, experimentally. • Frictional energy of rubber wheel calculated through finite element analysis (FEA). • FEA elucidated the important material properties needed for abradability analysis. • Including viscoelasticity in FEA led to closer abradability to experimental one. • The study provides concise framework for tire wear prediction, computationally. Prediction and control of tire wear is of sig nificant engineering interest to the tire industry. Complex contact mechanics and distributive footprint characteristics in rolling tires necessitate application of rubber abradability, a nonlinear function of abrasion rate versus a spectrum of frictional energy dissipation, in the finite element analysis (FEA) of tires for accurate prediction of wear distribution. In the present study, a simple and novel force measurement system was designed for the Akron Abrasion Tester to construct the abradability curve for a tread compound, experimentally. Then, a combined computational and experimental approach was employed to construct the abradability curve for the compound, in order to analyze the effect of viscoelasticity on this curve. For this purpose, the lateral force at different slip angles was calculated for pure hyper-elastic or hyper-viscoelastic behavior of the rubber wheel by the steady-state rolling in the FEA. Hyper-elastic and hyper-viscoelastic behavior of the rubber compound was obtained by uniaxial tension and dynamic-mechanical tests, respectively. Coefficient of friction as functions of nominal pressure and sliding velocity in the footprint was also obtained using an in-house tribometer for rubber. First, it was shown that it is possible to construct the abradability curve for rubber by the Akron abrader. Second, it was discussed that including hyper-viscoelastic behavior of rubber in FEA reduces the lateral force and the frictional energy dissipation with closer agreement with the experimental values.