Lateral Stiffness and Dynamic Properties of Separable Polyurethane Tires for a Folding Bike

摘要

With an increasing demand to reduce CO2 emissions, sustainable transportation tools are drawing attention. After having reported on our initial design of a folding bike as an easy-to-carry sustainable transportation tool, we now explore lateral stiffness as well as other dynamic properties, including modal behaviors and steady state vibration characteristics. In this study, we investigate the lateral force of a separable polyurethane solid tire with varying slip and camber angles. Nonlinear hyperelastic material models are used with a commercial finite element code, ABAQUS/Standard. Transient and steady state dynamic properties of the separable bike wheel and tire are also investigated with the ABAQUS/Explicit code, and the results are compared with those of the pneumatic counterpart.