Experimental Study of Pneumatic Tire Performance On Ice.

The evolution of vehicle safety systems, from the earliest brakes to today’s accident avoidance systems, has led vehicles to a very high safety potential. Driving on ice still happens to be one of the driving conditions of low safety, even with today’s advanced technology. A multitude of factors were identified by various studies to contribute to the complex frictional mechanism at the tire-ice interface. The study of pneumatic tire performance on ice becomes challenging as the contributing factors keep changing over time, directly influencing the coefficient of friction at the tire-ice contact patch. The goal of this paper is to present in a coherent and structured manner the major findings from experimental studies conducted on a P225/60R 16 97S radial Standard Reference Test Tire (SRTT) on ice using the terramechanics rig at the Advanced Vehicle Dynamics Laboratory, Virginia Tech. The study began with a detailed literature review on the subject of tire performance on ice and understanding the factors contributing to the friction mechanism at tire-ice interface, which led to design of a comprehensive experiment matrix involving different test conditions. The findings of the experimental study confirmed that the friction mechanism at the tire-ice interface is affected by various factors like normal load, ice surface temperature, and inflation pressure. Taking advantage of the findings from the experimental study the next step is the development and validation of a tire-ice model to predict the performance of pneumatic tires on ice.