Early Assessment of Tire Related Ride Comfort Based on Component and System Level Measurements

Driving comfort is becoming increasingly important in the development of modern vehicles. As the only link between the vehicle and the road, tires have a significant impact on the vehicle ride and NVH behavior. Nowadays, the influence of tires on overall vehicle comfort is evaluated by expensive vehicle testing sessions. To reduce this effort and to support the tire submissions, an earlier comfort assessment of tires based on their behavior at component- and system-level is essential. In this paper, the influence of the tire vibration behavior on ride comfort is investigated and correlations between the dynamic component- and system-level coupling/cutting forces are derived. Recently in-house developed chassis NVH and cleat tire test rigs were used for this investigation, enabling measurements under a wide range of operating conditions (e.g. velocities, wheel loads and cleat dimensions). Relevant operating conditions for the tire-related ride comfort assessment at component level are highlighted based on characteristic trends in frequency and time domain. On this basis the state-of-the-art measurement protocol used for the parameterization of physical tire models is discussed. Furthermore, the influence of the suspension system on the comfort values previously determined on tire component level are highlighted.