KSCE Journal of Civil Engineering (2021) 25(7):2451-2463 pISSN 1226-7988, eISSN 1976-3808

DOI 10.1007/s12205-021-1306-0 www.springer.com/12205

Highway Engineering

Analysis of the Tire-Pavement Contact Stress Characteristics

during Vehicle Maneuvering

Haiqi Hea, Rui Lia, Qihui Yangb, Jianzhong Peia, and Fucheng Guoa
a
Key Laboratory for Special Area Highway Engineering of Ministry of Education, Chang’an University, Xi'an 710064, China
b
Shaoxing Highway Administration Bureau, Shaoxing 312000, China

ARTICLE HISTORY ABSTRACT

Received 22 July 2020 The vehicle maneuvering condition plays an important role in the analysis of the contact stress
Revised 30 December 2020 characteristics of the tire-pavement interaction. A reliable three-dimensional (3D) tire-
Accepted 7 February 2021 pavement interaction model was developed to simulate the interface contact stress at static
Published Online 12 April 2021 and various rolling conditions (free rolling, acceleration and braking). First, the 205-55-R16
radial tire was modeled accurately comprised of its special pattern and materials in the finite
KEYWORDS element software ABAQUS. Next, we analyzed and compared these contact stress characteristics,
including the distribution of contact stress, the peak contact stress and the variation of stress
Tire-pavement contact stress with time at free rolling, acceleration and braking conditions. Results showed that under the
Finite element model same vehicle load and inflation pressure, the tire-pavement contact stresses at free rolling
Contact stress-time distribution condition are always much larger than those at static loading condition. At acceleration
Free rolling
condition, the peak contact stress occurs at the inner edge of the tire outermost ribs. At
Acceleration
deceleration condition, the stress concentration on the tire tread is weakened with the
Braking
extension of time. The peak contact stress increases with time at acceleration and braking
conditions. But the peak contact stress at braking is much larger than that at acceleration
condition under the same load and inflation pressure.

1. Introduction stress was previously considered to be equal to the tire inner

The contact between the tire and the pavement not only affects
the vehicle driving performance, but also influences the service
lifetime of the road. Especially, the widespread flexible pavements
would become more vulnerable and brittle due to the repeated
wheel loading (Li et al., 2015). In addition, a lot of discussions
have been carried out on the contact surface of aircraft tires and
airport pavement under various wheel pressures and vertical
loads in the relevant researches of airport pavement, considering
the safety of flight operation and durability of pavement structure
(Wesołowski et al., 2020a; Wesołowski et al., 2020b). Some studies
have already demonstrated that the contact stress distributions
have significant effects on the calculation of pavement responses
and performances using mechanical models (Roque et al., 2000;
Wang, 2011). With the further research, many researchers have
found that the contact stress distribution of the tire-pavement
interface is non-uniform in the contact area, which is different
from the circular or rectangular uniform distribution shape (contact
inflation pressure). The conventional assumption was frequently
used to the theoretical analysis for simplifying compute, but the
slight difference between the supposition and reality would
induce errors on the calculation results of pavement response
(Jiang et al., 2017; El-Kholy and Galal, 2012; Dong and Ma,
2017). Machemehl et al. (2005) proved that the uniform distributed
contact stress tended to underestimate and overestimate the
pavement responses at low and high tire pressures. Moreover,
high contact stresses at the edge of the tire was regard as the
major factor to increase the potential for the near pavement
surface damage such as rutting and top-down cracking (Manyo
et al., 2019). The predicted lifetime of the asphalt pavement
under the measured non-uniform contact stress is more consistent
with the actual fatigue lives than that under the traditional
uniform load assumption (Park et al., 2005). In order to improve
the road service level and life, it is essential to take into account
the distribution characteristics of the tire-pavement contact stress
during the vehicle maneuvering in the pavement design.

CORRESPONDENCE Rui Li lirui@chd.edu.cn Key Laboratory for Special Area Highway Engineering of Ministry of Education, Chang’an University, Xi'an 710064, China
ⓒ 2021 Korean Society of Civil Engineers
2452 H. He et al.
The tire, as the only connection between the vehicle and road
surface, transfers the heavy loads to the pavement, thereby three
diverse contact stress components were generated at the interface
(Elseifi et al., 2005; Wang and Al-Qadi, 2010). The ribs and
grooves of tire result in the non-uniform distribution of tire-
pavement contact stress, usually the peak stress would occur at
the edge of ribs. In addition, the exact contact stress distribution
is also related to other influence factors, including contact region
geometrical characteristic (surface structure, mesoscopic texture),
tire type (radial-ply, bias-ply, wide-base tire and dual-tire assembly),
tire feature (tread pattern, rubber material), tire rolling condition
(free rolling, acceleration and braking), vehicle loading condition
(load and inflation pressure), relative motion velocity, ambient
temperature, etc. For instance, Hernandez and Al-Qadi (2016)
considered that the influence of temperature on calculating contact
stress is not negligible, using the analysis matrix consisted of 81
cases at free rolling proved that speed and temperature would
affect the contact area more, the longitudinal contact stresses
were the most influenced by them in the three contact stress
components. Wang et al. (2014) indicated that using an appropriate
friction coefficient was important to predict the accurate contact
stresses of tire–pavement interface, for example the tangential
contact stresses increases as the pavement surface friction
coefficient increases at the free-rolling, accelerating and braking
conditions.
As mentioned above, many contact stress distribution rules
affected by related influence factors have been summarized in
literatures. Different from the static load in previous studies, now
the loading condition is changing to moving load gradually when
analyzing the impact of every influence factor on the contact
stress characteristics. Actually, the pavement is exposed to
moving wheel loads, whose dynamic response are interrelated to
the loading time (Al-Qadi et al., 2008). The distribution rules of
contact stress concluded from the static loading condition (static
vertical load and tire inflation pressure) are quite inconsistent
with the realistic situation. In addition, the various functional
properties of the tire and the interaction force of the tire-pavement
are embodied in the process of vehicle movement. The dynamic
load of the vehicle is one of the key factors for early pavement
damages, hence, it is necessary to study more variation characteristics
besides non-uniformity of contact stress during vehicle maneuvering.
Wang et al. (2012) have simulated the tire-pavement contact
stress at static and various rolling conditions, and the results
displayed that the non-uniformity of vertical contact stresses
reduces as the load increases, increases as the inflation pressure
increases under static loading, whereas tire braking, acceleration
cause significant longitudinal contact stresses. Anghelache and
Moisescu (2012) used a complex measuring system and
developed a software for dealing data to research the influence of
changes in inflation pressure and rolling speed on the tri-axial
stress distribution in free rolling condition, they showed that the
area of contact patch decreases both with increasing inflation
pressure and rolling speed, the distribution of longitudinal stress
on ribs is a quasi-sinusoidal shape. There are many conclusions
that compared the magnitude of triaxial stress at tire rolling
conditions, but the variation features of contact stress with
different load and pressure at free rolling condition and the
characteristics of contact stress changing with time in acceleration,
deceleration conditions are still not clear. Therefore, this study
will explore the above two points and summarize the variation
rules of tire-pavement contact stress during vehicle maneuvering.
Wu et al. (2020) predicted the viscoelastic pavement responses
using four kinds of contact stress patterns and compared their
effect. We expect to conclude a most appropriate contact stress
pattern from the stress variation in movement, it is beneficial for
predicting the pavement responses without precisely building tire
model.
There are two ways including experimental device measuring
and numerical modeling to achieve the realistic contact stress
distribution. The magnitude and non-uniformity of the contact
stresses are extremely complex when the vehicles are moving.
The experimental devices like triaxial pressure transducer, pressure
cells, piezoelectric sensors and resistive sensors (De Beer et al.,
1997; Tielking and Abraham, 1994; Douglas et al., 2000; Manyo
et al., 2017) were usually used to measure the contact stress, the
weakness of them were costly and time-wasting. The accuracy of
data achieved by these measurement technics depends on the
testing tire, resolution of the sensor, the sensors space interval in
the contact interface and steel plate force. It was difficult to take
into account these unmanageable factors in the measurements
simultaneously, what hindered us from conducting further study
through experiments. Whereas, the efficient numerical simulation
method has been applied widely to the all kinds of road researches
and achieved satisfied results (Zhang et al., 2017; Xia, 2010).
Therefore, many researchers predicted and calculated the pavement
response by simulating a validated precise tire-pavement interaction
modeling, which incorporated suitable pavement, tire material
and geometry properties. Wang et al. (2013) utilized a three-
dimensional (3D) finite element (FE) model to analyze airport
runway pavement responses and achieved a good agreement
between the calculated pavement responses and the measured
responses under various loading conditions. For this matter, a
numerical simulation method approach was chosen in this paper
for studying the contact characteristics of tire-pavement interaction
during vehicle maneuvering.
Considering the tire geometry structure and rubber material
properties provided by the tire manufacturer and uniaxial tensile
laboratory test, the 3D tire model was established in the ABAQUS
software. The validity of the model was verified using the
measured static loading experimental data. Then the developed
model was to be used to simulate the tire-pavement interaction at
free rolling, acceleration and braking conditions. The objectives
of this paper include the following two points. The first one is to
establish a tire-pavement contact FE model precisely which can
be used to simulate and compute the complex contact stress. The
second objective is to analyze the relevant characteristics of tire-
pavement contact stress during vehicle maneuvering, including
the effects of changing vehicle load and tire inflation pressure on
 KSCE Journal of Civil Engineering 2453

contact stress at static loading and free rolling conditions, the

variation characteristics of contact stress with time at acceleration
and braking conditions.

2. Theoretical Model

2.1 Research on Tire Model

An establishment tire-pavement contact model which accords
with the actual situation is essential for accurately analyzing the
tire grounding performance, contact stress distribution and so on.
The conclusion of non-uniform contact stress distribution induced
by ribs and grooves indicated that the tire geometry structure
can’t be simplified. The 205-55-R16 radial tire is a light truck tire
with a wide range of applications. Its performance parameters are
shown in Table 1.
By conducting an indoor tire measurement test, the two-
dimensional cross-section geometry information of the tire is
obtained. On account of the axisymmetric structure of the tire, a
half of the two-dimensional cross-sectional view was drawn by
AutoCAD based on the tire section parameters shown in Fig. 1. Fig. 1. 1/2 Cross Section of 2D Tire Model
The section width is 223 mm, and the contact width containing
five ribs and four grooves is about 171 mm. There are five
longitudinal ribs of the radial-ply tire. The depth and bottom tensile test results of the tire different part rubber materials, the
width of each groove are approximately 8.14 mm and 9.17 mm Yeoh material model was chosen for simulation because of its
respectively in the ABAQUS modeling. The bottom corner of excellent fitting effect. The rubber strain energy function of the
the groove is simplified to an obtuse angle of 110° to improve the Yeoh model is expressed as Eq. (1):
quality of subsequent mesh generation. Fig. 1 also restores the 3 i 3 2i
U= ∑ i = 1 Ci0 ( I1 – 3 ) + ∑ i = 1 ( J – 1 ) ⁄ Di , (1)
realistic structure of the tire shoulder. A smooth curve is selected
at the tail of position 1 for transition, and a step-like broken line where U denotes the rubber strain energy density, Ci0 and Di are
is adopted at position 2, with a corner angle of 90°. The radial material parameters, J is elastic volume ratio, I1 is first stage
tire structure comprises one cord layer, two belt plies, tire crown strain invariant, its expression is introduced in Eq. (2):
and rubber carcass. The arrangement angles of two belt plies are 2 2 2
I1 = λ1 + λ2 + λ3 , (2)
150° and 23° with respect to the circumferential direction, while
the circumferential direction is perpendicular to the radial ply. where λ1, λ2, and λ3 are the primary elongation.
The tire is a composite of hyperviscoelastic rubber, cord and
steel belt. In order to satisfy the different functions of each part of
the tire, their material properties are also diversified. The following Table 2. Yeoh Model Parameters of Rubber
assumptions were made for the rubber material in the simulation: The name of Yeoh model
1. Material behavior is elastic; the rubber C10 C20 C30 Di (i=1,2,3)
2. The stress-strain relationship is highly nonlinear;
Tread 0.75111 -0.03758 0.07925 0
3. The stress of the material is isotropic;
Sidewall 0.39158 -0.0943 -0.02961 0
4. The material is approximately incompressible;
Cap tread 1.01731 -0.10102 0.022067 0
5. All deformation occurs instantaneously.
Full band rubber 4.62126 -0.07061 0.02608 0
In this study, the mechanical properties of rubber are described
Carcass compound 0.79266 -0.03876 0.01221 0
by continuum medium mechanics, which is a phenomenological
method different from mesoscopic mechanics. The strain energy Bead filler 1.95335 -0.04145 0.007386 0
density of rubber which refers to the strain energy stored in unit Inner liner 0.54636 -0.08165 0.013796 0
volume describes its constitutive model. According to the uniaxial Bead rubber 1.66422 -0.088 0.100813 0

Table 1. Parameters of Radial Tire 205-55-R16

Section width Maximum overall Single tire load Dual-tire load Inflation pressure Minimum twin
Tire parameters
(mm) diameter (mm) capacity (kg) capacity (kg) (kPa) spacing (mm)
Numerical 223 642 750 710 375 245
2454 H. He et al.

Table 3. Rebar Parameters Setting

Cross-sectional The tensile modulus
The name of the material Spacing/mm Angle/o Poisson's ratio
area/mm2 (MPa)
Tire cord 0.6361 1.0 0 5,000 0.45
The first belt ply 0.3318 0.7 61 20,000 0.33
The second belt ply 0.3318 0.7 -61 20,000 0.33
The first steel belt 0.2376 1.0 90 2,000 0.45
The second steel belt 0.2376 1.0 -90 2,000 0.45

Fig. 2. 2D Tire Model Grid Distribution

The Yeoh model parameters of the tire rubber obtained by

fitting the laboratory test results are shown in Table 2.
The ply and belt of the tire are different from the isotropic
rubber material, they represent anisotropy in mechanical properties
as composite structures. The rebar reinforcement layer was
selected to simulate the reinforced skeleton structure of the tire.
The rebar unit parameters of the literature (Zhu, 2017) are used
in the model establishment hereinafter. These parameters are
presented in Table 3.

2.2 Establishment of 3D Tire Model

A two-dimensional FE tire model with rubber material properties
was generated through filling a tire diagram with the material
module. The principal tire geometry structure and material
characteristics are all retained to increase the model accuracy and
compute efficiency. The local element distortion will occur in the
interface between tire and road surface so that the linear unit type
was selected to suit for the distortion problem. As a result, a 2D
axisymmetric tire model, shown in Fig. 2, was built with Fig. 3. Finite Element Mesh of 3D Tire Model: (a) Complete Tire
CGAX4RH and CGAX3H elements for rubber. There are two Mesh, (b) Tire Section Mesh, (c) 3D Mesh of Steel Belt, (d) 3D
ways to generate a symmetric model, for instance, rotating an Mesh of Tire Rubber Carcass, (e) 3D Mesh of Tire Belt Ply, (f) 3D
axisymmetric model around its symmetry axis or combining two Mesh of Rim Structure
parts of a symmetric model. In terms of the 3D FE tire establishment,
the process was divided into three steps. First, the partial 3D tire
model was obtained by rotating the 2D model 180° around its exhibited in Fig. 3. The 3D tire model was built with C3D8RH
symmetry axis. Then, the inflation pressure and concentrated elements for rubber and SFM3D4R elements for the reinforcement
load were applied to this partial 3D model. Finally, the mirror such as steel belt.
symmetry was used to generate a complete 3D tire model,

Table 4. Comparison of Simulation Results and Test Results
Finite element
Test Deviation
Project calculation
results coefficient
results
Inflated outside diameter (mm) 643 649 0.9%
Inflated section width (mm) 223 225 0.9%
Static load radius (mm) 317 323 1.9%
Sinkage (mm) 20.8 21.5 3.3%
Static load section width (mm) 230 236 2.5%
2.3 3D Tire FE Model Test Validation
In order to validate the accuracy of the built model, a tire static
laboratory test was conducted. The outside diameter and section
width of the inflated tire under a standard pressure 250 kPa were
measured. Then, using the same way to measure the section
width, static load radius, and tire sinkage when the tire was
applied to a static load 3,000N. Table 4 shows the comparison
results between the measured data and the index values calculated
by the developed model.
Analyzing the data in Table 4, the measured results of outside
diameter and section width are very similar to the values
simulated from the 3D tire model at inflation state. The static
load radius deviation coefficient under a given load is 1.9%, and
the deviation coefficient of the sinkage is 3.3%. From the
comparison results, we can regard the accuracy of the developed
tire model is high. So that the 3D tire FE model can be used for
the simulation to research the variation characteristics of the tire-
pavement contact stress during vehicle maneuvering.
2.4 A Tire-Pavement Interaction Model
The pavement model is constructed as a flexible structure like
asphalt pavement. But there are still some challenges that we
encountered when established tire-pavement contact model, such
as the viscoelasticity of road material, deformation difference
between the tire and pavement, pressure loaded surfaces and
non-linear friction contact (Laursen and Stanciulescu, 2005;
Oden and Lin, 1986). Those problems are difficult to be solved,
otherwise the modeling workload will be increased vastly.
Compared with the rigidity of the tire material, the pavement
overall rigidity is much larger so that there are tiny deflections
when the vehicle load transmits to the pavement surface. In this
study, the asphalt pavement was constructed as a non-deformable
flat surface to obtain better computation stability and efficiency,
and this assumption doesn’t affect the accuracy of the simulation
results of the contact stress (Ghoreishy et al., 2007; Al-Qadi and
Wang, 2011; Guo and Zhou, 2019). In addition, the limited slip is
selected as the contact formula of the contact model, which
means that there is arbitrary relative sliding between the two
contact interfaces. The developed tire-pavement contact model is
presented in Fig. 4. The main consideration is the effects of the
load and inflation pressure on the contact stress distribution at
different driving conditions, the friction coefficient was set to a
consistent value of 0.6 which meets the flexible pavement
KSCE Journal of Civil Engineering 2455
Fig. 4. Tire-Pavement 3D Contact Model
specification named JTG D50 (2006).
The rolling tire can be decomposed into the angular velocity
(ω) and the transport velocity (υ) for the convenience of
description. When the tire rolls free, there is no additional torque
acting on it. The tire-pavement interaction state during vehicle
acceleration and braking is different from that at free rolling
conditions. Evidently, they generate the different applied forces
and cause varying degrees damage on the pavement structure. In
the simulation, the specific transport speed of the tire was set to
80 km/h, the fixed tire pressure was 250 kPa, and the vertical
load was 3,000N. Generally, the transport velocity is equal to the
angular velocity multiply by the free rolling tire radius. The
acceleration or braking process was realized by controlling the
relationship between the transport velocity and the angular
velocity. Accelerated state appears when the tire angular velocity
is greater than the angular velocity at the free rolling condition.
On the contrary, braking appears when the angular velocity is
less than the angular velocity at the free rolling condition. Therefore,
the angular velocities were 72 rad/s and 68 rad/s at acceleration
and braking condition, respectively.
3. Numerical Results and Analysis
3.1 Contact Stress at Static Loading Condition
There are two essential factors in studying the tire-pavement
contact mechanism, which are the contact area and the contact
stress (Wang and Al-Qadi, 2009). Many researchers have
increasingly realized that the contact stress of the tire-pavement
interface is non-uniform under static load (De Beer et al., 2002).
That is to say, in addition to the irregular shape of the contact
area, the contact stresses of each contact point also exist
differences. It is valuable to explore the non-uniformity variation
of the tire-pavement contact stress during vehicle maneuvering.
The developed tire-pavement interaction model is used to
simulate contact stress as the static vehicle load or tire inflation
pressure increases. Fig. 5 presents the tire-pavement contact
patch shape and contact stress distribution under various static
vertical loads (2,500N, 3,000N, 3,500N, 4,000N, 4,500N, 5,000N,
2456 H. He et al.

Fig. 5. Schematic Distribution of Contact Stress under Different Vertical Loads: (a) 250 kPa, 2,500N, (b) 250 kPa, 3,000N, (c) 250 kPa, 3,500N,
(d) 250 kPa, 4,000N, (e) 250 kPa, 4,500N, (f) 250 kPa, 5,000N, (g) 250 kPa, 5,500N, (h) 250 kPa, 6,000N

Fig. 6. Contact Stress Curves under Different Loads: (a) Along Transverse Tire Center Line, (b) Along Longitudinal Tire Center Line
5,500N, 6,000N) when the tire inflation pressure is fixed at 250 kPa.
It can be found that the stresses at the tire center barely change
as the load increases, but the peak contact stresses gradually shift
from the outer grooves to the outermost edges of the tire. The
large vertical load mainly induces the bend deformation on the
tire sidewall. Hence, the stress distribution fields can be observed
that the contact stresses at tire outsides are greater than those at
tire center in the whole tire-pavement interaction area. It is the
high contact stress at the tire edge that would cause the near
pavement surface damage such as rutting or cracking. Obviously,
the contact area increases with the load increases. Taking the tire
transverse and longitudinal center line as the analytical path, the
tire-pavement contact stress curves under different static loads
are plotted as shown in Fig. 6. As we can see, the value of the tire
center contact stress approximately keeps at 0.09 MPa with the
load increases. The change of the load has hardly any effect on
the contact stress in the tire center area. The peak contact stress
can reach 0.48 MPa. It can be seen from the figure that although
the contact stress presents symmetry distributions along the tire
transverse and longitudinal center lines, there is no significant
numerical relationship between contact stress and tire inflation
pressure (250 kPa).
Likewise, the distribution characteristics of contact stress
under the changing tire inflation pressure (200 kPa, 250 kPa, 300
kPa, 350 kPa, 400 kPa) when the constant static load at 3,000N
are exhibited in Fig. 7. With the increase of tire inflation pressure,
the tire-pavement contact patch tends to shrink gradually, and the
overall stress distribution is similar to the schematic distribution
of contact stress under the changing loads.
Figure 8 shows the contact stress curves along the transverse
and longitudinal line under various tire inflation pressure. With
the increase of tire pressure, although the tire-pavement contact
patch has a tendency to decrease, the contact stresses increase
significantly, especially at the inner edge of tire outermost ribs.
The shape of the stress distribution curves is concave along the
KSCE Journal of Civil Engineering 2457
longitudinal center line. At the static loading condition, the
minimum contact stress occurs at the tire center area. Compared
with the changed loads condition, the tire center contact stresses
are more sensitive when the tire inflation pressure changes. It
indicates that the contact stresses at the tire center region and
outermost ribs are mainly affected by the changed tire inflation
pressure and static load, respectively. In addition, the contact
area increases as the load increases, but decreases as the inflation
pressure increases. These results are coincident with previous
conclusion in the Wang et al. (2012) at static loading condition.
On this basis, the correctness of the tire-pavement interaction
model also can be verified.
3.2 Effects of Vehicle Load on Contact Stress at Free
Rolling Condition
When the vehicle is at free rolling condition, the driving force is
equal to the friction of the pavement surface. In this working
condition, the tire-pavement contact stress characteristics are
related to the vehicle load and tire inflation pressure. The vehicle
keeps at a slow speed of 10 km/h at free rolling condition in
ABAQUS, and applied vertical loads are respectively: 2,000N,
3,000N, 4,000N, 5,000N, 6,000N (tire inflation pressure is 250 kPa).
These five models were computed for exploring the influence of
changed vehicle load on contact stress at free rolling condition.
Figure 9 presents the stress distribution of the tire-pavement
contact area under the above five vertical loads. It can be seen
that when the vehicle is subjected to the load of 2,000N at free
rolling condition, the localized contact stress concentration forms
at the center position in the movement direction side, but the
stress concentration area is smaller. The stress concentration area
extends along the lateral direction to the two sides as the increase
of the load. When the load is 4,000N, the two small stress
concentrated regions appear near the outer side tire ribs. On the
whole, the contact area increases as the load increases.
As we can see from Fig. 9 that under the changed load, the
2458 H. He et al.
Fig. 7. Schematic Distribution of Contact Stress under Different Inflation Pressure: (a) 200 kPa, 3,000N, (b) 250 kPa, 3,000N, (c) 300 kPa, 3,000N,
(d) 350 kPa, 3,000N, (e) 400 kPa, 3,000N
variation of contact stress is more obvious along the tire
transverse center line. Fig. 10 plots the transverse stress curves
under different vertical loads. It can be summarized that even
though these stress curves distribute symmetrically along the tire
longitudinal center line, there still are great differences under
different loads. When the load is 2,000N, the shape of the stress
curve is convex along the transverse center line. The peak
contact stress occurs at the front center area of tire. As the load
increases, it gradually shows as a double peak symmetric shape
about the longitudinal center line. Under the high vehicle load,
the peak contact stresses occur at the inner edge of the outermost
ribs which become to the main force bearing parts. The peak
contact stress shifts from the tire center to the inner edge of the
outermost ribs as the load increases.
3.3 Effects of Tire Pressure on Contact Stress at Free
Rolling Condition
In order to study the influence of the changed tire inflation
pressure on the stress at free rolling condition, four kinds of
inflation pressures were applied respectively: 250 kPa, 300 kPa,
 KSCE Journal of Civil Engineering 2459

Fig. 8. Contact Stress Curves under Different Inflation Pressure: (a) Transverse Stress Distribution, (b) Longitudinal Stress Distribution

Fig. 9. Stress Distribution Cloud Diagram under Changed Load: (a) 250 kPa, 2,000N, (b) 250 kPa, 3,000N, (c) 250 kPa, 4,000N, (d) 250 kPa,
5,000N, (e) 250 kPa, 6,000N
2460 H. He et al.

the same vehicle load and tire inflation pressure, the tire-pavement
contact stresses at free rolling condition are always much larger
than those at static loading condition. There is much potential to
induce the pavement surface damage such as rutting or cracking
due to the high vehicle load and tire pressure at free rolling
condition.

3.4 Contact Stress-Time Distribution Characteristics at

Acceleration Condition
During the acceleration process, the speed of the vehicle is
increasing. Controlling the incremental step of the constructed
model is used to obtain the variation of the contact stress of the
tire-pavement interface during the vehicle acceleration and braking
processes. Five incremental steps were set, namely: INC0, INC1,
INC2, INC3 and INC4. Fig. 12 shows the stress distribution
cloud diagram for the INC3 incremental step at the vehicle
Fig. 10. Transverse Stress Distribution Curves under Different Loads

350 kPa, 400 kPa (vehicle load was 3,000N). The four models
are calculated to obtain the tire-pavement contact stress curves of
under different tire inflation pressures, displayed in Fig. 11.
These stress curves have convex shapes along the transverse and
longitudinal center line, the localized contact stress concentration
occurs at the tire-pavement contact center. As the tire pressure
increases, the difference value of contact stress between the tire
shoulders and the center tread is larger. The contact stress at the
tire center area is the most affected by the changed inflation
pressure. The peak contact stress occurs at the tire forward center
region, and shift towards opposite direction of movement as the
tire inflation pressure increases. Significantly, the contact area
decreases as the tire inflation pressure increases.
When the vehicle load or tire inflation pressure changed, it is
concluded that the affected regions for the contact stress are
similar at the static loading and free rolling conditions. But under Fig. 12. Stress Distribution Cloud Diagram of INC3 Incremental Step

Fig. 11. Stress Distribution in Contact Area under Different Tire Pressure: (a) Transverse Stress Distribution Curve, (b) Longitudinal Stress Distribution
Curve
 KSCE Journal of Civil Engineering 2461

Fig. 13. Curves of Contact Stress with Time at Acceleration Condition: (a) Along the Transverse Center Line, (b) Along the Longitudinal Center Line

Fig. 14. Curves of Contact Stress with Time at Braking Condition: (a) Along the Transverse Center Line, (b) Along the Longitudinal Center Line

acceleration condition. There are localized stress concentration
regions at the tire outermost ribs.
The variation of stress in the tire-pavement contact area with
time at accelerated state is plotted in Fig. 13. Along the tire
transverse direction, there is a great stress growth at the inner
edge of the tire outermost ribs, where the peak contact stress
occurs. Moreover, the peak contact stress increases with the
extension of time. The contact stresses at the tire center decrease
gradually. The tire central stress concentration region shifts
towards motion direction in this acceleration process. It can be
inferred that the stress concentration on the tire tread is enhanced
with the extension of time.
3.5 Contact Stress-Time Distribution Characteristics at
Braking Condition
At the braking condition, 11 incremental steps, namely INC0 to
INC10, were set. The Fig. 14 describes the change rule of the
tire-pavement contact stress with time during braking process,
including the data of INC0, INC2, INC4, INC6, INC8, INC10
incremental step state.
The contact stresses at the tire center and outermost ribs
increase with time. The localized stress concentration at the tire
ribs shift towards the outer grooves. The difference value of the
contact stress between the tire outermost ribs and tire center
gradually reduces, which differs from the increasing difference at
acceleration condition. Along the longitudinal centerline of the
tire, the stress concentration moves away from the motion
direction. The distribution rule of contact stress claims that the
stress concentration on the tire tread is weakened with the
extension of time. This is exactly opposite to the acceleration
condition. The peak contact stress is much larger than that at the
acceleration condition. The vehicles will do more damage to the
2462 H. He et al.
pavement surface during braking. The cracking resistance of the
pavement should be improved at the entrance of intersection.
4. Conclusions
In this paper, the ABAQUS software was used to establish the
3D FE model of the tire-pavement interaction. The contact stress
distribution under different vehicle loads, tire inflation pressures
at static loading and free rolling conditions, and the variation
characteristics of contact stress with time at acceleration and
braking conditions were analyzed. The research results summarize
as following, which can be used as references for the pavement
response prediction:
1. At the free rolling condition, the contact stresses at the tire
center region and outermost ribs are mainly affected by the
changed tire inflation pressure and vehicle load, respectively.
This is similar to the rule at static loading condition. Under
the same vehicle load and tire inflation pressure, the tire-
pavement contact stresses at free rolling condition are always
much larger than those at static loading condition. There is
more potential to induce pavement damage under the
dynamic loading condition.
2. When the load increases, the peak contact stress shifts from
the tire center to the inner edge of the outermost ribs at the
free rolling condition. The peak contact stress occurs at the
tire forward center region, and shift towards the opposite
direction of movement as the tire inflation pressure increases
at the free rolling condition.
3. At the acceleration condition, the contact stress at the inner
edge of the tire outermost ribs increases with the extension
of time, whereas, the contact stresses at the tire center
decrease gradually. The peak contact stress occurs at the
inner edge of the tire outermost ribs. The stress concentration
is enhanced during acceleration.
4. At deceleration condition, the contact stresses at the tire
center and outermost ribs both increase with time. The
stress concentration on the tire tread is weakened with the
extension of time.
5. The peak contact stress increases with time at acceleration
and braking condition. But the peak contact stress at
braking is much larger than that at the acceleration condition.
The vehicles will do more damage to the pavement surface
during braking.
This paper simulated the tire-pavement interaction during the
vehicle maneuvering, like free rolling, acceleration and braking
conditions. The results illustrated the complexity of the non-
uniform contact stress. It can be observed that the contact stress
characteristics are affected by many factors, including tire load,
inflation pressure and driving condition. These above contact
stress analysis results provide a basis for further research on
pavement response and structure failure. For further research, the
friction coefficient, the vehicle speed and wet road condition, etc.
should be considered as influence factors to study the characteristics
of the tire-pavement contact stress at various operating conditions.
In the future, the authors will seek a most appropriate contact
stress pattern used in predicting responses on a viscoelastic
pavement FE model with the surface texture. The contact stress
under various tire pressures and vehicle loads will be studied
according to the frequent acceleration and deceleration situations
at the exit and entrance of urban road intersections. And combined
with action time and loading frequency, the pavement damage
and service life of road intersections will be estimated with
relatively higher accuracy.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of
China (grant number 2018YFE0103800), and the Special Fund
for Basic Scientific Research of Central College of Chang'an
University (grant numbers 300102219308, 300102219316). The
authors gratefully acknowledge their financial support.
ORCID
Not Applicable
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