Investigation of Lateral Performance of an ATV Tire on Natural, Deformable Surfaces

Abstract

A study is undertaken to discover links between soil-rubber interface strength, camber, pressure and lateral performance of a front ATV tire. New tire and soil test rigs are also designed and fabricated for the support of this research. The tire is tested at various geometries and inflation pressures on cohesive and frictional soils. Lateral, longitudinal and vertical forces are recorded with an electronic data logging system. Using the results from the tire tests, an exponential tire model is fit to the tire data. Coefficients of the model are then compared to the inflation pressures, camber angles, and soil data. The effects on tire performance trends are observed. Data from these experiments can be used to aid in the programming of autonomous unmanned ground vehicles, or to create better vehicle dynamics models for small off-road vehicles.