Vibroacoustic simulation for truck tire tread noise prediction

In the last years, the introduction to the market of electric vehicles and a new labeling system introduced by the European Commission raised a strong interest in the noise produced by the tire-road interaction. The reduction of noise emissions became a strong challenge for the tire manufacturers that are constantly in need of developing new simulation tools capable of predicting the noise emitted by a tire. In this paper, the application of a simulation methodology capable of predicting the noise performance of a tire is shown and validated by means of experimental data. The experimental activities consisted of the acquisitions of noise produced by three truck tires made up of a particular tread pattern in which a single geometric feature is analyzed in each configuration, in a near field indoor condition. The simulation process aims to faithfully reproduce the procedure of the experimental test and involves the use of non-linear explicit finite element analysis followed by a vibroacoustic simulation to account for the radiated noise by structural vibrations and fluid-pumping.