COMPARING HYDROPLANING CHARACTERISTICS OF TRUCKS WITH WIDE-BASE AND CONVENTIONAL DUAL TIRES

摘要

The hydroplaning potentials of wide-base truck tire (425/65R 22.5) and conventional dual tires11R22.5, respectively, were evaluated using a proposed FSI simulation model. The numerical modelconsists of three sub-models: Truck Tire Sub-model, Water Film Sub-model and Pavement Sub-model.It enables one to determine the hydroplaning speeds of pneumatic truck tires under different operatingconditions, such as varying wheel loads, tire pressures, and pavement surface water-film thicknesses.The simulation results of the investigated cases indicated that hydroplaning speed increases withincreasing wheel load and tire pressure while decreases with the increasing water film thickness. It isalso noted that inflation pressure has a larger influence rate on wide-base tire hydroplaning speed thanwheel load. The comparative study shows that wide-base truck tire has a higher hydroplaning speedthan conventional dual truck tire by up to about 15 km/h under the normal operating conditions.