Measurement of the Dynamics of a Tire’s Inner Liner With Digital Image Correlation

The objective of this work was to design a vision-based 3-D measurement system to study the dynamics of a tire’s inner liner under controlled conditions. Tire dynamics is a crucial and rapidly evolving field in the automotive industry. This article presents the work done to address this need by developing a system that leverages modern optical devices, such as small action cameras, to measure the behavior of the tire’s inner liner with high accuracy and minimal uncertainty. Therefore, results have been used to validate numerical models of the tire and to deeply understand the tire behavior under different testing conditions. The methodology chosen for this study is stereo digital image correlation (Stereo DIC), which enables the measurement of displacement and deformation maps on a deformable surface using a series of cameras. A challenging aspect is related to the small available space in which introduce the camera setup. To ensure the work’s success, experiments were conducted in a highly controlled environment using the flat track machine at the Pirelli Tyre S.p.A. testing facility. This specialized equipment simulates tire-road interactions, allowing each test condition to be associated with well-defined, constant parameters. This controlled setup facilitated precise data analysis and enabled more reliable comparisons across different test scenarios.