Abstract

Recently, vehicles on sand have been operated at higher speeds with diversified usage, and requests for the development of radial tires, applicable to both pavements and sandy areas have emerged. Although a large number of studies and analyses of tire performance on paved surfaces have been reported, few reports are available for tire performance on sandy surfaces. This study deals with the behavior of radial tires on the sand.

A simple theoretical equation was derived in which the sand traction performance could be expressed as the difference between the propulsive force and the driving resistance on sand. The theoretical equation was found to be highly related to the empirical equation derived from previous work. Sand samples from typical deserts were used for analyses of shearing stress and compressive breaking force of sand through unique measuring techniques, resulting in modification of the theoretical equation to give more precise prediction of the tire performance on sand for most areas in the world.