8. Design and Analysis of Vehicle Tyres with Phase Change Material for Anti-freezing

In transportation, automobiles run on tyres for their movement on the road ways. There are various problems faced by the tyres, one of them is cold weather conditions especially in countries and places where temperatures drop below 0 °C and where the roads are covered with layers of ice or snow which clogs in the treadings of the tyre decreasing their grip on the road and also reduces tyre pressure due to change in density of air. These factors not only affect the tyres performance, but are also responsible for the fatal accidents occurring on the roads due to skidding and slipping of tyres. This work deals with the problems faced on account of tyres in cold weather conditions and tries to eliminate them with a different approach by employing phase change materials (PCM) which release high amounts of heat while freezing and absorb heat when they are melting. Embedding these PCMs in the vehicle tyres generate sufficient heat that can reduce the clogging of ice on the tyres. The present work analyses the effect of the position of the PCMs on the performance of the tyres. The PCMs are embedded around the circumference of the tyre such that angle between PCMs is 90°,120°,180°and 360º, respectively, on four different tyres. Theoretical and simulation analyses are carried out to study the effect of PCMs on the temperature difference generated. From the analysis, it is observed that PCM is quite effective in transfer of heat to tyres in cold conditions, and it is effective and efficient when positioned at 360°, i.e. when attached on complete inner wall of a tyre.