Artigo Completo:

The existing tire models are basically of three kinds: essentially empirical (“magic formulas”), or mixed empirical/analytical, or extremely complex theoretical models almost useless in practical situations. The model here proposed does not require any empirical data, and presents a simple theoretical approach very suitable to use in project and analysis of real suspension systems. This paper presents a physical and mathematical model for the mechanical behavior of pneumatic car tires, in the particular case of vertical loading. It is a theoretical model, in the sense that it does not require any empirical data. It is based on the perfectly flexible and quasi-inextensible membrane theory, and its formulation does not rely on any tire material property – it is exclusively geometric. The calculated results from this model are compared with measured data from four quite different types of tires: two used in small passenger cars, one high performance tire used in sport vehicles, and other heavy duty tire used in SUV’s. In all cases, the differences between measured and calculated data were lower than 5% in the normal range of pressure and loading.