On the Stability of Tire Torsional Oscillations Under Locked-Wheel Braking Available to Purchase

This paper deals with the stability of self-excited tire torsional oscillations during locked-wheel braking events. Using a combination of torsionally flexible tire-wheel model and a dynamic tire-ground friction model, it is highlighted that the primary cause of unstable oscillations is the ‘Stribeck’ effect in tire-ground friction. It is also shown analytically that when suspension torsional compliances are negligible, the bifurcation parameters for the local torsional instability include forward speed, normal load and tire radius. In the presence of significant suspension torsional compliance, it is shown that the stability is also affected by suspension torsional stiffness and damping. Furthermore, the tire torsional stiffness becomes an important bifurcation parameter only in the presence of significant suspension compliance. This analysis gives useful insights for the selection of tire sidewall stiffness ranges and their proper matching with targeted vehicle suspensions at the design stage.