Tyre Mechanics and Thermal Effects on Tyre Behaviour

This chapter deals with tyre mechanics and it has a particular focus on thermal effects on its dynamical behaviour. In the first part the typical tyre structure is introduced together with the tyre mechanical/dynamical behaviour according to a classical approach, so recalling the main kinematic and dynamic quantities involved in tyre pure and combined interactions. The core of this chapter is the description of a physical-analytical tyre thermal model able to determine the thermal status in each part of the tyre useful for vehicle dynamics modelling and driving simulations in order to take into account thermal effects on tyre interactions and consequently on vehicle dynamical behaviour. Successively also the tyre wear modelling is faced, after a brief introduction to the different models available in literature some considerations are reported concerning the thermal effects on wear.