Abstract

The thermomechanical behavior of pneumatic tires is a highly complex transient phenomenon that, in general, requires the solution of a dynamic nonlinear coupled thermoviscoelasticity problem with heat sources resulting from internal dissipation and contact and friction. This highly complex and nonlinear system requires indepth knowledge of the geometry, material properties, friction coefficients, dissipation mechanisms, convective heat transfer coefficients, and many other aspects of tire design that are not fully understood at the present time. In this paper, a simplified approach to modeling this system that couples all of these phenomena in a straightforward manner is presented in order to predict temperature distributions in static and rolling tires. The model is based on a one‐way coupling approach, wherein the solution of a mechanical rolling contact problem (with friction and viscoelastic material properties) provides heat source terms for the solution of a thermal problem. The thermal solution is based on the thermodynamics of irreversible processes and is performed on the deformed tire configuration. Several numerical examples are provided to illustrate the performance of the method.