Numerical Simulation of Tread Effects on the Interaction Between Cellular Shear Band Based Non-Pneumatic Tire and Sand

To optimize the design of the non-pneumatic tire for NASA’s new Moon mission, Finite Element Method (FEM) is used to investigate the tread effects on the interaction between cellular shear band-based non-pneumatic tire and sand. The cellular shear bands, which are made of an aluminum alloy (AL7075-T6), are designed to have the same effective shear modulus of 6.5E+6 Pa. The Lebanon sand found in New Hampshire is used and Drucker-Prager/Cap plasticity constitutive law with hardening is employed to model the sand. The tires and tread are treated as deformable elastic bodies. Penalty contact algorithm is used to model the tangential behavior of the contact between the tread and sand and Coulomb’s law is considered for the friction between tire and sand. Numerical results show the deformation of sand and tire. The stress (strain) distribution in sand, tire, and along the interface between them are also presented. The effect of the tread on the contact pressure between tire and sand is explored. Numerical results show that the shear band with cellular geometry of (θ = −65°, h = 21) is the most promising for use in the non-pneumatic tire.© 2011 ASME