Citation

Ranney TA, Heydinger G, Watson G, Salaani K, Mazzae E, Grygier P. Accid. Reconstr. J. 2006; 16(4): 29-43.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2006, Accident Reconstruction Journal)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Tread separation (TS) is a possible failure mode for all radial tires. While one goal of tire design is to minimize the frequency of TSs, they can occur for all makes and models of radial tires. TS can occur on any wheel of the vehicle, and a wheel with a separated tread loses some of its ability to sustain large directional ground forces. At highway speeds, small steering inputs cause the detreaded tire to saturate prematurely, thus losing its ability to handle large lateral forces. From a safety point of view, vehicle dynamics theory predicts that, for straight line driving, rear wheel TSs will be more dangerous than front wheel ones, due to the decrease in rear axle lateral force capability associated with rear tire TS. Following TS, if the driver pulls the vehicle off the road to the right, then theory further predicts that separations occurring on the left rear wheel are potentially more dangerous than ones occurring on the right rear wheel. The (detreaded) left rear tire carries more of the load than the right tire during a move to the right and is thus more susceptible to premature loss of lateral force capabilities or increased likelihood of loss of vehicle control. Using the National Advanced Driving Simulator research was performed to assess drivers' responses to simulated TSs. The research aims were accomplished with an experiment in which subjects drove simulated SUVs on high-speed divided highways with light surrounding traffic. Vehicle understeer gradient was varied by modification of simulated vehicle models. Prior knowledge was manipulated by having subjects experience a tire failure with no advanced information and one following an explanation. Half of subjects received specific instructions about how to best control the vehicle after TS, while half were told that 1 or more additional tire failures was likely. Half the tire failures occurred on the left rear tire; half occurred on the right rear tire.