Introduction

Although drivers do not care about tire management, it is crucial in terms of vehicle safety. Incorrect tire inflation pressure also increases fuel consumption and tire wear. A methodology is proposed to calculate, given a specific vehicle loading condition, the inflation pressure of the tires which allows tires to work properly, keeping in every condition an optimal vehicle response during cornering.

Technical features

In order to let a tire work properly, its vertical deflection should be kept around a specific value. Tire vertical deflection is strictly related to the load weighting on the wheel and to tire inflation pressure. As a consequence, tire pressure should be adjusted as the vehicle loading condition changes. If this kind of adjustment is not performed, the vehicle response during cornering and its stability during emergency steering maneuvers change. The more the loading condition differs from the reference one, the worse will be the vehicle handling. The proposed algorithm allows to calculate, for each tire of a vehicle, an inflation pressure value depending on the current load weighting on it in such a way that the vehicle lateral dynamic response is kept at its reference.

 

Possible Applications

• Vehicles using pneumatic tires;
• Commercial vehicles, where the load variation between the curb and the full-load weight is large;
• On-board central tire inflation systems;
• Off-line calculation of pressure values to be realized through manual actuations.

Advantages

• Improves vehicle handling and safety, keeping a reference understeering/ oversteering behavior;
• Improves the utilization of the tires, reducing consumption and tires wear;
• The reference understeering/ oversteering behavior may be modified as a function of external variables, such as, weather, type of soil, etc.