Electric Vehicle Tires Test Bench Design for Laboratory

Tire mechanical characteristics are the basis of vehicle dynamics, while commercial test benches are expensive, bulky, and heavy. This article designs an electric vehicle tire test bench for laboratory use for better understanding tire mechanical characteristics and developing complex vehicle dynamic control algorithms. The designed test bench can measure the 14~18- inches tire’s longitudinal force, lateral force and vertical force under complex combined conditions like different speeds, vertical loadings, longitudinal slip rates, sideslip angles and cambers. The subsystems of the test bench are introduced, which include the mechanical system, electrical system, hydraulic system, data collection system and control system. A 205/55R16 passenger vehicle tire is tested as an application example. The demonstrations of different tire postures are applied, and the tire’s longitudinal force-slip rate and lateral force-sideslip angle relationships are tested.