Experimental observations of tyre deformation characteristics on heavy mining vehicles under static and quasi-static loading

Due to large sidewall and bead thicknesses, multi-piece rims are necessary for use with large off-the-road (OTR) tyres. This paper presents the testing protocol and observed load/deflection and vertical/sidewall deflection characteristics of three Goodyear OTR tyre assemblies, namely, (1) a radial 29.5R29 (2) a bias-ply 29.5-29, and (3) a bias-ply 26.5-26. Localized tyre deformations and rim displacements were measured using optical displacement transducers and post-processing high-speed camera images using digital image analysis software. A validation analysis illustrated a maximum difference of 4.05% of vertical wheel displacements between the aforementioned methods. Quasi-static tests show the maximum values of vertical rim displacement and lateral tyre deflection are in the range of 72.2–78.9 mm and 23.3–27.1 mm, respectively, for a severe excitation condition. Differences ranging from 0.2% to 21.5% for maximum vertical and lateral tyre deflections were found between static load tests and engineering data provided by the tyre manufacturer. Linear relationships were observed for both vertical wheel displacement and lateral tyre deflection versus load for all tests. This study demonstrates a thorough methodology to study deflection characteristics of heavy duty OTR tyres and the collected data could be very useful in the development of numerical models of wheel and tyre assemblies for mining vehicles.