Study on Dynamics of Polygonal Wear of Automotive Tire Caused by Self-Excited Vibration

Considering the underlying reason of tire polygonal wear, a unified mechanical tire model is developed to analyze the different vibration properties between the driving wheel and follower wheel. And the LuGre dynamic friction model is applied to determine the frictional forces between the wheel with a slip angel and the road. Through the stability analysis with Lyapunov theory, it is found that tread self-excited vibration is periodic oscillation caused by Hopf bifurcation. The analysis of the lateral vibration of driving wheel shows that the tread vibration system loses its stability and self-excited vibration occurs when the wheel is rolling at a high speed, is over-loaded, is having a large toe-in angle, or is under a low tire pressure. On this basis, the dynamic behaviors of the driving and follower wheels are distinguished with different slip rates by the numerical simulation. Compared with the dynamic behaviors of the follower wheel under the same condition, the self-excited vibration occurs on the driving wheel with more limited parameter scope, lower oscillation energy, and lower occurrence, which explains why the polygonal wear is less likely to occur on the driving wheel.