Experiment and Simulation Research on the Fatigue Wear of Aircraft Tire Tread Rubber

Polymers (Basel). 2021 Apr 2;13(7):1143. doi: 10.3390/polym13071143.

Abstract

The road surface and the tread pattern structures directly affect the wear performance of aircraft tire, especially for lateral sliding conditions. In this paper, wear tests of tread block with different draft angles and root radiuses, different interfaces, and different slip angles were carried out, and combined with the simulation, the effects of tread groove structure and slip angle on the wear mechanism were analyzed. Results indicated that the influences of draft angle were greater than the root radius; the wear geometry of the tread block decreased when the draft angle increased in the range of 0° to 15°, but for the root radius, the wear geometry of each sample was similar to a strip shape. A considerable material loss occurred at the front edge when the slip angle increased, and the slip angle was larger in the range of 0° to 45°. Combined with the simulation and wear test, fatigue wear and abrasive wear of the slide surface are dominant factors when considering the effects of tread groove structure and slip angle, and both front edges of the tread blocks roll up repeatedly; the coefficient decreases with the increase in load when the cement concrete pavement interface is dry, but for a wet interface, the coefficient decreases softly.

Keywords: aircraft tire; fatigue wear; finite element model; pavement; rubber.