Materials Today: Proceedings 47 (2021) 6628–6635

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Materials Today: Proceedings

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/matpr

Numerical analysis of rubber tire/rail contact behavior in road cum rail

vehicle under different inflation pressure values using finite element
method
Abhay Gupta a, Sharad K. Pradhan b,, Lokesh Bajpai a, Varun Jain b
a
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Samrat Ashok Technological Institute, Vidisha 464001, India
b
Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Institute of Technical Teachers’ Training and Research, Bhopal 462002, India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: With the advent of Rail cum road motors there are great demanding situations earlier than Indian rail-
Received 26 September 2020 ways. Railway Engineers had been for all time interested by the metal wheel-Rail and Rubber tire-Rail
Received in revised form 1 May 2021 contacts. These tiny interfaces govern the dynamic overall performance of avenue cum rail motors via
Accepted 6 May 2021
the masses it transmits and, like every high-strain attention sector, it’s far subjected to severe damage
Available online 24 May 2021
phenomena. The paper deals with modelling and simulation of the static behaviour of a radial mini truck
tire of a proposed road cum rail automobile in touch with rails. The Finite element technique via the
Keywords:
ANSYS software program is used to obtain the static behaviour of the rubber tire in contact with rail
Road cum rail vehicle
Tires-rail contact
underneath inflation stress values. The primary goal is to carry out a finite detail analysis and computa-
Rubber, Modeling tionally compare the overall performance of a stationary rubber tire along with rim on rails with the aid
FEM, Simulation of changing the inflation stress so that corresponding overall performance parameters like equivalent
Static analysis strain in rubber tire and rims, deformation and call patch of rubber tire are expected and the effect of
inflation pressure on these parameters can be understood.
Ó 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the International Confer-
ence on Advances in Design, Materials and Manufacturing.

1. Introduction curve negotiation, braking, accelerating and other track related

issues to minimize the risk of failures of these converted vehicles.
A rail-street automobile is an automobile that could function on One important research and development issue is the wheel/tire
rail tracks and a traditional street. This is also called hello-rail, track interaction.
excessive-rail, HiRail, Hy-rail, etc. These are often converted road The main characteristics of road cum rail vehicles are mobility
cars, keep8ing their normal wheels with rubber tires, but equipped of rubber tires and rail wheels on rails, high localized deformation
with additional flanged steel wheels for strolling on rails. Propul- of rubber tires and transfer of vehicle load in static and running
sion is common thru the frictional force between traditional tires conditions from rail wheel and rubber tires to rails. Simulation pro-
and the railway tune, the flanged wheels being loose-rolling; the cedures combined with experiments on the contact of rail wheel
rail wheels are raised and diminished as per the requirement. and rail are investigated by many researchers and well docu-
The developed avenue cum rail scavenging vehicle is shown in mented in Meymand et al [1] comprehensive survey.
Fig. 1. The study of contact behaviour of rubber tire with the road (tak-
Road rail vehicles are used for inspection and maintenance pur- ing rim as rigid body) is tried via many however to the high-quality
poses, disinfectant spraying, weed removal chemical spraying, of authors’ information, no person has tried to research the contact
scavenging, cleaning, disposal of track garbage etc. There has been behaviour of rubber tires (with the rim as the elastic frame) on
ongoing research regarding design, maintenance and inspection rails. This study focuses on rubber tire deformation concerning
standards, including load and load distribution, behaviour during the touch location and the resulted in contact pressure distribu-
tions at the tire–rail interface. Giurgiu et al. [2] deal with modelling
and simulation of the static and dynamic behaviour of radial tires
 Corresponding author.
on road for civil emergency automobiles or army armoured
E-mail address: [email protected] (S.K. Pradhan).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2021.05.100
2214-7853/Ó 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the International Conference on Advances in Design, Materials and Manufacturing.
A. Gupta, S.K. Pradhan, L. Bajpai et al. Materials Today: Proceedings 47 (2021) 6628–6635

vehicles the usage of ANSYS software. A fully predictive high- for reinforcement and hyperelastic for rubber. Rubber is hyperelas-
fidelity numerical approach for the simulation of an automobile ticity in nature and may typically be considered to be isotropic,
tire rolling with a steady angular speed over a coarse road surface almost incompressible and stress fee unbiased. The reinforcements
is supplied by way of Gregorius et al. [3]. Complicated finite ele- particularly include substances that can be nicely represented by
ment models for 9.00R20 and 9.00–20 truck tires had been devel- way of elastic modulus and Poisson’s ratio. But, rubber compo-
oped by Moisescu et al. [4] and used for the research of modal nents enjoy big deformation because the importance of the carried
behaviour of tires without avenue contact to get resonant frequen- out load increases. Consequently, the linear elastic model isn’t
cies for radial vibrations of tires and corresponding modal shapes. always appropriate and hyperelasticity will become a higher
Nallusamy et al. [5] developed a finite detail technique to assess choice. It had non-linear assets that become modelledemploying
the performance of a regular-state rolling tire on road through the constitutive Mooney-Rivlin equation with no consideration of
changing the tire tread styles. a viscoelastic impact. The capacity power of deformation for the
Wang et al. [6]predicted Tire-Pavement touch pressure beneath Mooney-Rivlin model and values for C10, C01, and D1are adopted
steady-state situations based totally on the 3-D Finite element from [18] in this study. Rim and Chord are taken as Elastic-plastic
technique. Pranoto et al. [7] illustrated the impact of the various additives.
loads at the tire, which would affect the contact pressure on the The objective of this research is to provide an in-intensity anal-
street floor sand strain distribution at the tire utilizing employing ysis of the touch patch behaviour of a particular mini truck tire
ABAQUS software. Moises et al. [8] advanced a finite element with avenue and rail. A regular 7.00/R16, the tire is used for this
model for the 11R22.Five truck tire for investigating the influence observe, Fig. 2. The houses of the rubber wheel and tire are
of vertical pressure at the distributions of touch stresses in desk- depicted via Tables 1 and 2 while the general specs of the rubber
bound situations and truck tire radial stiffness. In Hernandez tire and rims considered for this evaluation are proven in Tables
et al. [9], a three-dimensional (3-D) finite detail (FE) illustration 3 and 4. The rubbers in extraordinary parts of the tire are simplified
of a twin-tire assembly is constructed to expect tire-pavement to the same cloth. To make the manner of data analysis easier, the
touch pressure distributions. Steyn et al. [10]investigated the rela- tire is thought to be crafted from herbal rubber subsequently the
tionship between pavement surface texture intensity and tire/sur- tire version accommodates one radial ply, steel belts and a rubber
facing contact strain and vicinity. Nackenhorst et al. [11] offered a carcass (sidewall and tread).
top-level view of state-of-the-art modelling methods for the finite The encouraged rim for this tire is 5.50F. A rim comprises fac-
detail computation of rolling tires based totally on an Arbitrary tors viz. Net and flange. The flange specification of the five.50F
Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) formula. Tang et al. [12] computation- rim is taken from the Tire and Rim association inc guide [19]. A fine
ally evaluated the temperature field of a steady-state rolling tire offset is while the hub mounting surface is toward the front or
on the road using FEM. wheel facet of the wheel. It is not unusual to find a positive offset
Beer et al. [13] discussed the direct dimension of three- in more modern and front-wheel pressure vehicles.
dimensional (3D) tire pavement touch stresses using a flatbed sen- All dimensions in this table in inch.
sor gadget. Wang et al. [14] described the improvement of a three- For this analysis, the positive offset value is taken as 95 mm and
D tire–pavement interaction version to expect the tire–pavement the number of holes is 5. Fig. 3 shows the finite element model of
touch stress distributions. Douglas et al. [15] developed an appara- the tire with positive offset and road of the proposed road cum rail
tus to measure contact stresses under full-scale tires and contact vehicle which are realized in ANSYS. The rim was modelled as a lin-
stresses for for a range of tire types, wheel loads, and inflation Pres- ear elastic body and in contact with the bead at the end of the
sures are measured. Chae [16] modelled a nonlinear 3-dimensional sidewall.
FEA tire version representing a truck tire, 295/75R22.5, with the
aid of implementing 3-layered membrane elements, hyperelastic
3. Numerical study
solid factors, and beam elements. Kuwajima et al. [17] studied
the rolling/sliding friction of tire tread rubber towards abrasive
No matter the analysis sorts have chosen, the initial Tire fash-
papers, which might be assumed to symbolize microscopic floor
ions are constantly built for structural static evaluation. Static eval-
roughness of pavement surfaces, at low slip velocities. To the
uation is ordinarily used for checking the weight capacity of the
knowledge of the author, nobody has attempted investigation to
tire, the validity of finite elements and software or the level of
recognize the interplay of rubber tires with rail underneath static
mesh refinement. Just to validate the tire, finite element version
or dynamic conditions. The paper is a try in this direction to simu-
and other boundary conditions the investigations are achieved in
late contact of rubber tire and rail under static situations to enable
two phases. In the first phase, the identical rubber tire in contact
the designer to improve the design of the tire and the control sys-
with the road is analyzed and the effects are established with the
tem, considering the wheel dynamics. The present studies are
existing posted experimental and simulated information and in
focused on modelling and simulating the behaviour of a stationary
the second phase, the established finite detail tire version is used
mini-truck tire and its rim utilized in road cum rail automobile in
to research its behaviour while it is in contact with rails.
contact with rails under 3 specific inflation pressures. The goal is to
grow the mobility and the protection of the road cum Rail cars. The
influence of tire rolling has not been considered, as the motive of 3.1. Case of rubber tire and road interaction
the current study is the investigation of tire-roadcontact in station-
ary conditions. Knowledge of how the tire interacts with the road is a com-
pletely important component that goes into assessing car overall
performance and because the tire’s geometry and shape are com-
2. Solid models of rubber Tire, rim and rail plex, the first step is to simulate rubber tire with avenue and val-
idate the equal with presently posted consequences and
A pneumatic tire is a flexible shape in the form of a toroid, filled previously amassed experimental measurements so that the equal
with compressed air. Standard additives of a radial passenger tire established tire model may be applied to simulate the interaction
are taken as in step with [18] Baranowski et al. The primary com- of this verified rubber tire model with rail.
ponents are rubber and reinforcement (ply and belts). Two fabric On this look, the road is modelled as a non-deformable flat sur-
constitutive models are used to simulate the tire: linear elastic face to attain better computation efficiency. This assumption is
6629
A. Gupta, S.K. Pradhan, L. Bajpai et al. Materials Today: Proceedings 47 (2021) 6628–6635

Fig. 1. Designed and Developed Rail track scavenging vehicle.

taken into consideration reasonable because the Tire deformation Table 1

is plenty extra than the street deflection whilst wheel load is .Material of rubber tire components.
applied on the Tire and transmitted to the street surface. The tire Rubber Tire part DensityKg/m3 Young’s Modulus MPa Poisson’s Ratio
is modelled as in line with section 2.0. A software-managed Hybrid
Tread 1173 14 0.45
meshing became completed with a three-D strong element of Hex- Carcase 1351 107 0.451
ahedral, Tetrahedral & Pyramid form. Kind of element = stable 186, Inner liner 2497 3181 0.454
solid 187; total numbers of nodes = 139894 and total numbers of Side wall 1132 5.05 0.45
elements = 29658.
Boundary Conditions: The bottom surface of the Road is fixed.
Displacement in the X direction is fixed at the surface of the Bolt- Table 2
hole in Rim. Frictional coefficient between Rubber Tire and Road is Material of rail, road and rim.
0.35Load of 4000 N is applied downward (- y-direction) at the Rim. Part DensityKg/m3 Young’s Modulus MPa Poisson’s Ratio
The Tire pressure of 0.2 MPa is applied to the inner surface of the
Rail 7850 2.1E5 0.3
Rim and Tire (refer to Fig. 4). Rim 7860 2.1E5 0.3
The Finite Element Analysis of Rubber Tire on Road was done Road 2300 3.0E5 0.18
with the design loads as mentioned in section 3.2 and Deforma-

tion; Von-Mises stresses, frictional and contact stresses were esti-

mated. Finite Element Analysis Type is set to Linear Static
Structural.
Deformation: After performing Finite Element Analysis it was
found that the max. The deformation of Rubber Tire is
20.355 mm towards the lower side which is in contact with the
road as shown through Fig. 5.
Von-Mises stress:After performing Finite Element Analysis it
was found that the max. Von-Mises Stress is 132 MPa in the rim
at bead location opposite to hub side as depicted by Fig. 6. The
average stress inside the tire is 73 MPa on the corner peripheries
of the tire as visible in Fig. 6. The outside layer of the tire experi-
ences minimal stresses as witnessed in Fig. 6.
Contact Patch: The frictional stresses are of the order of 1 MPa
symmetrically at the corners of the contact patchwhile it is sym-
metrically zero on the farthest lines of the patch parallel to the tire
axis of rotation. The same trend is observed in contact pressure dis-
tribution also with the maximum approximate value of 4 MPa. The
contact patch status is depicted through Fig. 11 (a) in which the red
colour portion represents the sticking zone and the orange colour
Fig. 2. Photo of the actual tire (7.00–16) and rim.
as a sliding zone.
6630
A. Gupta, S.K. Pradhan, L. Bajpai et al. Materials Today: Proceedings 47 (2021) 6628–6635

Table 3
Specification of rubber tire.

Size Load Index Ply Rating Speed Symbol DiameterOverall (mm)

7.00–16 118/113 14 K(110 KPH) 804

Table 4
Specification of flange of 5.50F Rim.

Size Standard Tire Holes No. Hole Diameter(mm) PCD (mm) CBD (mm) Disc Thickness (mm)
5.50F-16 7.00–16 5/6 32.5 203.20 146.00 10

Fig. 3. Finite Element Model (Mesh Model of Rubber Tire).

Fig. 4. Boundary Conditions & Loading on Rubber Tire.

6631
A. Gupta, S.K. Pradhan, L. Bajpai et al. Materials Today: Proceedings 47 (2021) 6628–6635

Fig. 5. Deformation Plot of Rubber Tire (Isometric and Half section Views).

Fig. 6. Von-Mises Stress Plot of Rubber Tire (Isometric and Half section Views).

The study focuses on the contact patch shape and stress distri- this Rubber tire-Rail evaluation. Primarily based on the tire stress
bution at the Tire–pavement interface. Good agreements were generally utilized in day to day by vehicle, uniform pressure values
achieved between the predicted and measured deflections [18] of 30 psi, 35 psi and 40 psi are implemented at the inner surface of
under the given loading and Tire pressure level. To examine the the tire. Fixed support is implemented at the rails. The fabric
accuracy of the developed model, the predicted contact stresses houses and dimensions used for the Rubber tire and rim are
at the Tire–pavement interfacewere compared to the experimental already noted in Tables 1 to 4. The material of Rails is taken similar
measurements provided by [18]. to that of Rim whilst the size of rail are taken from [20].
An application-controlled Hybrid meshing is achieved with 3-d
strong detail of Hexahedral, Tetrahedral & Pyramid shape. The kind
3.2. Case of rubber tire and rail interaction
of element used inside the meshing is stable 186 & strong 187. The
meshed version used for this simulation carries 144,320 nodes and
Know-how the way the tire interacts with the rail at diverse
144,320 factors and is generated in ANSYS preprocessing device.
inflation pressures and driving situations is vital to optimizing tire
The tire has meshed with 54,861 tetrahedral detail and 102,225
and car performance. The footprint form and strain distribution
nodes, rims meshed with 56,891 tetrahedral element and
sample are very essential elements that are required to assess
116,231 nodes. The solid and FE model of the tire with the rim
the tire’s charge of wear and tear, the automobile’s gasoline econ-
on rail is shown in Fig. 7. The boundary situations applied are infla-
omy and affect the vehicle stability and management, mainly
tion stress, load and phone nation viz. Fixed on the bolt hole in Rim
under intense manoeuvres. Equal rubber tire-rim material homes
and the frictional coefficient among tire and rail is 0.35. As shown
and version as detailed in preceding segment 2.0 are followed for

6632
A. Gupta, S.K. Pradhan, L. Bajpai et al. Materials Today: Proceedings 47 (2021) 6628–6635

Fig. 7. Solid and FE Model of Positive offset Rim with Rubber Tire and Rail.

Fig. 8. Boundary Conditions & Loading on Positive offset Rim with Rubber Tire and Rail.

Table 5
Von-Mises stress values under different inflation pressure 0.2068 MPa (30psi), 0.2413 MPa (40psi) & 0.2758 MPa (45 psi)
are carried out to the inner surface of the rim and tire for the three
Rim type Tire pressure Mpa Total deformation mm Von-Mises
cases respectively. After performing the Finite element evaluation
Stress MPa
of the Rubber tire and rail at unique tire pressure the maximum
Positive offset 0.2068 (30 psi) 33.979 130.54
deformations obtained inside the tire are tabulated in Table 5
Positive offset 0.2413 (35 psi) 34.136 148.34
Positive offset 0.2758 (40 psi) 34.299 166.38 and the distribution of the equation is depicted via Fig. 9.
Von-Mises stress:After performing Finite Element Analysis of the
different offset rim at different Tire pressure the max. Von-mises
stress obtained in the tire is tabulated in Table 5 and the distribu-
tion of the same are depicted through Fig. 10 while the contact
in Fig. 8. A load of 9810 N (1 Tonne) is carried out downward (- y- pressure distribution is shown in Fig. 11 (b).
route) at the rim for all three instances and the tire pressure of Contact Patch(Rubber Tire –Road and Rubber Tire-Rail)

6633
A. Gupta, S.K. Pradhan, L. Bajpai et al. Materials Today: Proceedings 47 (2021) 6628–6635

Fig. 9. Deformation Plot of Positive offset Rim Road Tire at 30 psi Tire pressure (Isometric and Half section Views).

Fig. 10. Von-mises stress Plot of Positive offset Rim Road Tire at 30 psi Tire pressure (Isometric and half-section views).

4. Conclusion dated model of rubber tire is used and the contact is made with
rails. The obtained results are summarized in Table 5. The stresses
In this research attempt, modeling and simulation of the static and deformation values are matching with the engineering judg-
behaviour of a radial mini truck tire of a proposed road cum rail ment values. The same simulated environment can be used to ana-
vehicle in contact with rails is investigated. The Finite Element lyze the behaviour of other tires with rail.
Method and ANSYS softwareare used to obtain the deformation,
Von-Misses stresses, frictional stress and contact pressure of the
rubber tire along with rim in contact with Rail under inflation pres-
sure values. The investigations are carried out in a phased manner.
In the first phase, the rubber tire is modelled and its contact beha- Declaration of Competing Interest
viour is investigated with the road. The simulated results obtained
are in a close match with the already published experimental The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
results of reference [18], which validates the simulated environ- cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared
ment and the modellig of the tire. In the second phase, the vali- to influence the work reported in this paper.
6634
A. Gupta, S.K. Pradhan, L. Bajpai et al. Materials Today: Proceedings 47 (2021) 6628–6635

Fig. 11. Contact patch plot of Positive offset at 30 psi Tire pressure (a) Rubber-Rail (b) Rubber-Road.

.References [10] W.J.vdM. Steyn, M. Ilse, Evaluation of Tire/Surfacing/Base Contact Stresses and
Texture Depth, International J. of Transp. Sci. and Tech. 4 (1) (2015) 107–118.
[11] U. Nackenhorst, Finite element analysis of tires in rolling contact, GAMM-Mitt,
[1] S.Z. Meymand, A. Keylin, M. Ahmadian, A survey of wheel-rail contact models
Surveys for Mathematics and App. Mechanics 37 (2014) 27–65.
for rail vehicles, Vehicle System Dynamics 54 (3) (2016) 386–428, https://doi.
[12] T.Tian, J. Daniel, S. Robert E, F.D Sergio, Numerical evaluation of the
org/10.1080/00423114.2015.1137956.
temperature field of steady-state rolling tires, 2014, App. Mathematical
[2] G. Tiberiu, C. Florina, P. Cristina, Static and Transient Analysis of Radial Tires
Modeling, 38 (2014) 1622–1637.
Using ANSYS, Recent Advances in Industrial and Manufacturing Technologies
[13] M. De Beer J.W. Maina Y. van Rensburg J.M. Greben Toward Using Tire-Road
(2019) 148–152.
Contact Stresses in Pavement Design and Analysis 40 4 2012 246 271
[3] D. De Gregoriis, F. Naets, P. Kindt, W. Desmet, Development and validation of a
[14] W. Hao, A.L. QadiaImad, S. Ilinc, Simulation of tire–pavement interaction for
fully predictive high-fidelity simulation approach for predicting coarse road
predicting contact stresses at static and various rolling conditions, Int. J. of
dynamic tire/road rolling contact forces, J. of Sound and Vibration 452 (2019)
Pavement Eng. 13 (2012) 310–321.
147–168.
[15] D.A. Robert, A. David, C. Neil, Measured tire/road contact stresses,
[4] M. Alexandra-Raluca, A. Gabriel, Investigation of the influence of vertical force
characterized by tire type wheel load and inflation pressure Annual Conf. of
on the contact between truck tire and road using finite element analyses,
the Transport, Ass. of Canada (2008).
Materials Sci. and Eng. (2017).
[16] C. Seokyong Nonlinear Finite Element Modeling and Analysis of a Truck Tire, A
[5] S.Nallusamya, Rajaram, M.Narayanan, R.Rekha,Suganthini, Design and
Thesis in Materials 2006 The Pennsylvania State University
Performance Analysis of Vehicle Tire Pattern Material Using Finite Element
[17] M. Kuwajima, M. Koishi, J. Sugimura, Contact Analysis of Tire Tread Rubber on
Analysis and ANSYS R16.2, Key Eng. Material777(2018)426-431.
Flat Surface with Microscopic Roughness, Research gate, Tire Science and
[6] Y. Wang, T. Sun, Y. Lu, C. Si, Prediction for Tire-Pavement Contact Stress under
Technology 34 (4) (2006) 237–255.
Steady-State Conditions based on 3D Finite Element Method, J. of Eng. Sci. and
[18] P.Baranowski, P.Bogusz, P.Gotowicki, J.Małachowski, Assessment of
Tech. Review 09 (2016) 17–25.
Mechanical Properties of Offroad Vehicle Tire:Coupons Testing and FE Model
[7] S. EdyPranoto, H. Royan, T. Mohammad, B.P. Athanasius, Numerical Analysis of
Development, actamechanica et automatic 6(2)(2012).
Tire/Contact Pressure Using Finite Element Method, AIP Conf. Proceedings
[19] Tire and Rim Association Yearbook1979.
(2016).
[20] J.P. Srivastava, P.K. Sarkar, V. Ranjan, Contact Stress Analysis in Wheel-Rail by
[8] A. Raluca, G. Moisescu, Anghelache Investigation of the influence of vertical
Hertzian Methodand Finite Element Method, J. Inst. Eng. India Ser. C 95 (4)
force on the contact between truck tire and road using finite element analyses,
(2014) 319–325.
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Sci. and Eng. 252 (2017) 12–15.
[9] H. A.Jaime, G.Angeli, Shakiba, Maryam, A. Q. L.Imad, Numerical prediction of
three-dimensional tire pavement contact stresses, A report of the findings of
ICT Project ICT-17-004(2015).

6635