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Jasleen Kaur Bheora, Varsha S Swamy, Mason Destiny, Alba Yerro, Corina Sandu, Katherine Sebeck, David Gorsich, and Bernardo Castellanos
The capacity of off-road vehicles to navigate unprepared terrain is determined by the forces imparted by the terrain. The strength of the tire-soil interface is typically lesser than the soil's internal strength. In particular, the interface friction characteristics between the tire and terrain influence the drawbar pull performance and are often overlooked in studies. As a result, accurate experimental determination of the interface friction and its influence on physics-based modeling is the focus of this paper. The tire interaction with fully saturated low plasticity clay (CL) in the plastic state is studied. A large-scale direct shear test between the off-road lugged tire and clay at different contact pressures is conducted to determine the interface failure envelope. As a novel contribution, the tire is sheared in both the longitudinal and transverse orientations. The reliability in the experimental findings is increased by conducting more small-scale direct shear tests with tire rubber samples. The results of the tests are imported into the numerical model consisting of an advanced FE tire interacting with the FE clay. The sensitivity of the drawbar pull and sinkage to friction is studied. Comparative analysis employing different terrain strengths (firm and soft ground) and tire designs (lugged and smooth) are conducted. The advanced FE tire consists of 11 parts including Mooney-Rivlin rubber and orthotropic elastic carcass plies. The research highlights the scenarios where the interface friction influences the drawbar pull, contrasting with situations where the clay deformations dominate. As a conclusion, the proposed methodology shows the importance of accurate interface modeling, providing insights for better correlation between modeling and experimentation.
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