Due to general safety reasons and a rising individual demand on more traffic safety, winter tires become more and more important. This evolution results in a rising requirement of the customers concerning the performance of the tire on the one hand and the effort of the tire industry for improving the tire characteristics on the other hand. For engineering winter tires in an effective way, the friction influencing factors as well as the contact mechanics should be well known (1). Normally the design and development of tires is strongly based on vehicle tests, but in modern tire development processes the simulation as well as the experimental investigation of tires and tire components in the lab become more and more important (2). This strategy especially plays an important role for reducing the number of tire development loops but also the development costs. With the experiments in lab, new problems come up which have to be solved: The general test conditions used inside must be similar to the proving ground outside, hence the outdoor test process has to be analyzed in detail and applied researches on the properties of snow and ice have to be done due to their large influence on the friction process. For realizing this demand of knowing the influence, measure and control the properties of snow and ice surfaces, it is essential to understand the formation of snow and ice but also to find characteristics of both materials which can be identified and measured with "engineering methods" outside on every test track all over the world and inside the lab. Within this publication a general overview of the tire tread block test method will be given. Furthermore the influence of snow and ice tracks on the friction process is presented and different approaches for characterizing properties of snow and ice are critically evaluated, challenges will be discussed.
Laboratory observations of the influence of snow and ice tracks on tire tread block friction
Laborbeobachtungen des Einflusses von Schnee- und Eisspuren auf die Reibung des Reifen-Würfelprofils
2011
8 Seiten, 9 Bilder, 15 Quellen
Aufsatz (Konferenz)
Englisch