Examination of ATV Tire Forces Generated On Clay, Grass and Sand Surfaces
Examination of ATV Tire Forces Generated On Clay, Grass and Sand Surfaces
Examination of ATV Tire Forces Generated On Clay, Grass and Sand Surfaces
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Government/Industry
Meeting and Exposition
Washington, DC
May 2-4,1989
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ABSTRACT
0148-7191/89/0502-1106$02.50
Copyright 1989 Society of Automotive Engineers, Inc.
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The book Mechanics of Pneumatic Tires (1)' deforms as it does during acceleration,
is an excellent example.
braking or a turning maneuver, forces and
moments are generated in the plane of
contact. These forces are highly nonlinear functions of the deformation, and
are specific to the tire construction,
inflation pressure, tread pattern and
normal loads.
The tires on first generation ATVs
also served as the suspension system of
the vehicle. This meant that they had to
have a soft spring constant in the radial
direction, which in turn led to the use
of carcassless tires. In addition, the
contact patch was large, thus lowering
the contact normal stress. This allowed
the vehicle to operate on very soft
terrains. The enveloping properties of
these soft tires also allowed the vehicle
to travel over small obstacles such as
logs and rocks. A disadvantage to these
early tires was that they would deform
extensively with time.
Today, most current ATVs have a
mechanical suspension consisting of a
spring and shock absorber assembly or
assemblies at each end of the vehicle.
All future ATVs will be required to have
some mechanical suspension. As a result,
tire construction has changed as the
designers have attempted to optimize the
combined effects of tire spring and
damping with those of the mechanical
However, tire construction, tread design,
suspension. The current generation of
operating pressure and surface conditions
ATV tires have carcasses, and come in
are significantly different for passenger
radial or bias-ply construction.
In an
car and ATV tires; and, while the trends
examination of nineteen tires studied as
are similar, little can be extracted from
part of this project by Holloway (10),
this information and applied to an ATV
the initial radial spring constant of
analysis. There has been research
these tires went from 171 to 345 lbf/in
conducted with off road agricultural
(30-60 N/mm). Older tires were not
tires and test fixtures; work by Crolla
available for testing, but we would
et al. (2), Schwanghart (3,4), Stephens
expect that their radial spring constants
(5), Mcallister (6), Sommer et al. (7),
would have been lower. The new tires
Horton et al. (8), Wismer et al. (9) is
still maintain the "balloon" appearance,
representative. Once again however, the
low operating pressures, and the
characteristics of the tires and the
enveloping properties of the earlier
operating loads are sufficiently
ones.
different from those of ATV tires to
Because there was no information in
necessitate a study specific to ATV
the literature on the forces generated in
tires. There was virtually no
the contact plane by these tires as they
information in the literature pertaining
deform, it was necessary to build a
to the low pressure type of tire found on
testing fixture to examine representative
ATVs. These tires typically operate in
ATV tires under normal usage conditions.
the 2-5 psi (14-34 kPa) range.
TIRE TESTING FIXTURE
A tire is a complex composite
structure. It is made from a variety of
The tire testing fixture design
ply materials oriented in various
consisted of a triangular steel frame
directions with multiple layers embedded
that mounted to the rear bumper of a
in a rubber matrix. When the tire
towing vehicle. A top view sketch of
this apparatus is shown in Figure 2. The
tire is located at the rear apex of the
*
Numbers in parentheses designate
fixture, and adjustments allow the slip
and camber angles to be varied. Normal
references at the end of paper
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loads are changed by stacking 50 lbf (222
N) weights on the fixture just slightly
forward of the tire location.
3
braking capability, and so some tires
were only tested for their lateral force
coefficients as functions of slip angle
and vertical load. For these first
tests, the force data from the load cells
was acquired on strip chart recorders. A
plotted data point was then taken to be
the average of an eighty second-test, run
at fixed conditions of slip angle and
weight at a nominal towing speed of 10
mph (16 km/hr). In order to generate a
range of data for a particular tire, the
vehicle would be stopped; the weight or
slip angle would be changed, and a new
test run begun. This procedure obviously
took some time, and the data reduction
was quite laborious.
When a disc brake assembly was added
to enable the determination of the forces
generated during braking, a DC driven
linear actuator was also added to the
steering arm so that the slip angle could
be swept during a run. Camber
information still required mechanically
adjusting a mounting plate. In turned
out, however, that for the purposes for
which this data would be used, the
variation in results with camber change
was not necessary. As a result, all of
the data presented in this paper was
taken at 0 degrees of camber.
Improvements were also made in the
data acquisition and processing. In its
present form, the signal conditioning and
data acquisition takes place through a
Daytronic 10KUD data pack which is
interfaced to a Zenith 183 lap top PC.
Software was written to calibrate the
load cells, and to control the data
acquisition process. Typical data sample
rates are about four times a second for
eight channels. Once the vertical load
on the tire is set, and the tow vehicle
is up to speed, the operator may either
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sweep through the full braking range or
through the full range of slip angles. A
test may still last eighty seconds, but
greatly increased amounts of data are
collected and are immediately available
for further processing or viewing. In
general, the first fifteen seconds of the
test are used to establish the free
rolling conditions since the rolling
radius of the test tire decreases with
increasing vertical load.
A test record of braking and lateral
force coefficients vs time during a swept
brake test is presented in Figure 4.
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fixture, the data has been digitally
filtered by using a simple, equally
weighted moving average method. At each
increment of time, the value of the force
coefficient at that instant plus five
values before and after that time are
averaged to create a new value. These
filtered or averaged values have also
been plotted in Figure 4, and in all
subsequent plots and discussion such
filtered data is presented. The small
values of lateral force coefficient, when
the tire is supposedly at 0 degrees of
slip angle, are a result of the
difficulty in exactly determining this
angle prior to beginning a test. We
appear to be off by about 0.5 degrees in
this example.
The force coefficients for the same
test are shown as a function of
longitudinal slip ratio in Figure 5.
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5
17 cm tall. Attempts were made to
conduct each run in a region of
undisturbed grass, but this was not
always possible. These tests were
conducted during a very dry summer, and
the grass was still green, but not lush.
Because of limited space, the towing
vehicle speed was 5 mph (8 km/hr).
The sand tests were conducted on dry
beach sand near Cape Hatteras, NC. The
test fixture was mounted to a 4x4 light
truck, and test run lengths were
unlimited. A perforated steel mesh
screen was mounted at the rear of the
truck frame, and served to level and
grade the sand just ahead of the test
tire. The towing speed was about 5 mph
(8 km/hr).
TEST RESULTS
Table 1 is a summary of the tires
and the conditions under which they were
tested.
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in this and subsequent tests, there
should be a finer division in slip
angles, and that angles greater than 15
degrees should be examined.
Results for this tire are presented
in Figures 10 and 11 in a bar graph
format. In these figures, data from two
repeated runs at a given slip angle are
plotted, and increasing vertical loads on
the tire are shown from left to right in
each cluster. Results from the repeated
tests show the variability in the data
for the field conditions on clay.
Figure 10 shows the lateral force
coefficient as a function of slip angle.
The repeatability of the tests is quite
good, with variations that are acceptable
when considering the end use of the data.
It is also noted that at low slip angles,
the tire performance at lower vertical
loads is better. However, at larger slip
angles, better performance was achieved
at the greater vertical loads. At
intermediate slip angles, there is quite
a variation in lateral force coefficient
as vertical load changes. For example,
at 4 degrees of slip, Fy/Fz goes from
0.31 at the lightest load to 0.21 at the
heaviest.
Figure 11 shows results for the
rolling resistance force coefficient.
The differences shown are of the same
magnitude as the experimental variations.
On the average, this tire has a rolling
resistance coefficient of about 0.05. It
also appears to be independent of both
slip angle and normal load.
Tire 4: KT-686 - clay, strip chart data
This tire was the stiffest (in the
radial direction) of any of the tires
tested. Its lateral performance on clay
is shown in Figure 12. Absolute
performance limits for this tire are
similar to those of the KT-465 (tire 1 ) ,
and both are slightly higher than the
Pro-Am H-Trak. In addition, both of the
KT tires (from the same manufacturer)
exhibit less sensitivity to vertical load
than does the Pro-Am (different
manufacturer).
Tires 5a and 5b: Pro-Am H-Trak2 -clay,
strip chart and computer data
These tires are similar to tire 3;
two with different serial numbers were
examined. One (5a) was tested using
strip chart recording of the data, and
the other was tested using the computer
data acquisition system. The lateral
force coefficient for tire 5a is shown in
Figure 13. The performance limit is
nearly identical to that of tire 3, and
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The talents and hard work of several
undergraduates who helped in the design
and construction of the test fixture, and
in the tire testing are greatfully
appreciated. Thank you Scott Schmidt,
Dan Schartman, Greg Thomas, and John
Hamilton.
This project has been funded in part
with Federal Funds from the United states
Consumer Product Safety Commission under
contract number CPSC-C-87-1221. The
content of this publication does not
necessarily reflect the views of the
Commission, nor does mention of trade
names, commercial products, or
organizations imply endorsement by the
Commission.
REFERENCES
1. Mechanics of Pneumatic Tires, Ed.
Samuel K. Clark, US Government Printing
Office, DOT HS 805 952, 1981.
CONCLUSIONS
A towed tire test fixture was built
that measures the forces and moments
generated between ATV tires and their
contact surfaces as functions of slip
angle, vertical load, and longitudinal
slip ratio. Seven tires representative
of those in use on ATVs were tested on a
hard packed clay/gravel surface. Two of
these seven were also tested on a tall
grass surface, a short grass surface, and
on dry beach sand.
Maximum lateral force coefficients
ranged from about 0.5 to 0.7 on the clay
surface with saturation slip angles
varying from 12 to 20 degrees. For the
three tires tested in longitudinal slip,
the maximum braking force coefficient
ranged from 0.6 to 0.7 at a corresponding
slip ratio of 50%. Performance limits on
the grass surfaces were slightly higher.
The data obtained on beach sand was
unique in that the shear response of the
sand dominated the tests.
For the tires tested in side slip
and longitudinal slip, quadrants of
friction ellipses were generated for the
clay, grass and sand surfaces. For the
clay and grass surfaces, the general
appearance of these figures parallels
that for passenger car tires. However,
on the beach sand, the ellipse became a
rectangle, and there was very little
coupling between lateral and longitudinal
force properties of the tires.
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9. Wismer, R.D., Luth, H.J., "OffRoad Traction Prediction for Wheeled
Vehicles," ASAE paper 72-619, 1972.
10. Holloway, D.C., "An Examination
of Tire and Suspension Properties of All
Terrain Vehicles," Report to CPSC on
contract CPSC8612500, 1986.
11. Chen, S.Y., Tsai, L.W. , Chen,
J., Holloway, D . C , "The Steady-State
Handling of Three-Wheeled All Terrain
Vehicles (ATVs)", SAE 891109, 1989.
12. Chen, S.Y., Tsai, L.W., Chen,
J., Holloway, D.C, "Steady State
Handling of Four-wheeled All Terrain
Vehicles (ATVs)", SAE 891110, 1989.
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