Analysis of Tire Temperature Influence on Vehicle Dynamic Behaviour Using a 15 DOF Lumped-Parameter Full-Car Model

The vehicle dynamic behaviour analysis is a crucial step for the evaluation of performance in terms of stability and safety. Tires play an important role by generating the interaction forces at each road-tire contact patch. The longitudinal and lateral dynamics are analysed by using instrumented vehicles with expensive high precision sensors to get a measurement of estimates of physical parameters of interest. This paper deals with the evaluation of vehicle under/oversteering behaviour and of braking performance using a Real-time (RT) simulator. The simulations were performed by using an efficient 15 Degrees of Freedoms (DOFs) Lumped-Parameter Full Vehicle Model (LPFVM), comprising a tire model with temperature-dependent properties. A virtual Driver-in-the-Loop (vDiL) scheme was used to perform test manouvers. The virtual driver is based on two PID regulators for speed and steering control. Finally, this paper reports the results of constant radius tests as defined by standard ISO4138 and of a braking manoeuvre. In both tests, a type-A road profile as defined by ISO 8608 standard was simulated.