Prediction of Tyre-Road Friction with an Inverted-Boat Shaped Pressure Distribution

In this paper, a predictive model is formulated to describe the frictional forces between the tyre and road. The model is based on an inverted-boat normal pressure distribution. The determination of the input parameters is simplified by the suggested stationary point approach for calculation of the frictional coefficients, which are analytically obtained. The verification of the established model shows that the predicted values are in a good agreement with measured data. A sensitivity study of the shape factors demonstrates that it is necessary to take the unsymmetric normal pressure distribution proposed in this paper into consideration to accurately predict frictional forces.