Potential of Road Surface Replicas for Use on Laboratory Test Rigs

The ongoing electrification process of passenger cars leads to constantly changing and increasing requirements regarding the NVH behavior of cars and their efficiency. In order to quickly meet these requirements, development processes are often supported by the use of simulation models. To reproduce the behavior of complex structures such as tires or chassis correctly, the simulation models must be parameterized based on test rig measurements. For measurements involving tires, the laboratory testing conditions usually exhibit a compromise between reproducibility and the correct representation of reality, especially for the surface texture of the test rig. The aim of this work, based on initial tests, is to demonstrate the potential of real road surface replicas on lab test rigs to close the gap between the derived behavior of tires on real roads and in a laboratory environment.