Contact test rig

The study of tyre/road contact is a key element:

• for the understanding of the generation mechanisms of vehicle rolling noise,
• eventually, for the optimisation of road surfaces.

Whereas this contact has been studied in a static way in recent years through the development of specific models and experiments, the dynamic contact in rolling conditions has been only minimally studied, for obvious reasons of experimental implementation. For that purpose, researchers of UMRAE have developed a new test rig.

This test rig is located on the site of Nantes and is installed in the semi-anechoic room (SSA). It is used for studying the dynamic influence of the tyre (viscoelasticity and vibrations) on the forces generated at the contact interface when rolling.

Several contact configurations (structure and materials of the elements in contact, surface geometry at the interface) can be treated this way. Thus, as fine as possible test/calculation comparisons  can be carried out using accurate knowledge of the surface geometries in contact.

In parallel, this test rig is used to measure the rolling noise of a tyre/road couple and to improve the understanding of the aerodynamic mechanisms (air-pumping) contributing to noise generation.