Thermo-mechanical coupled modeling for numerical analyzing the influence of thermal and frictional factors on the cornering behaviors of non-pneumatic mechanical elastic wheel

Abstract In this paper, we developed an advanced thermo-mechanical coupled finite element analysis (FEA) model to numerical investigate the cornering behaviors of a novel non-pneumatic mechanical elastic wheel (MEW). To construct this thermo-mechanical coupled model, first, the theoretical models of MEW involving cornering characteristics model, heat transfer model and frictional model were proposed successively. By incorporating the heat transfer and frictional model into a three-dimensional (3D) nonlinear FEA model of MEW, we established thermo-mechanical coupled FEA model consequently. By comparing the simulation results with the experimental data (tyre dynamics testing), the model was found to perform high reliability and accuracy, demonstrating the great capability in precisely predicting the cornering characteristics of MEW under practical working environments.