Fatigue Life Prediction of a Groove Bottom of Green All Steel Radial Rubber Tires

ABSTRACT At present, a large number of tires are scrapped every year due to cracks in the tread grooves, so evaluating tread groove fatigue characteristics is important for the service life of tires. This study concisely predicts the fatigue life of tread grooves based on material property experiments and finite element analysis (FEA). The strain energy concentration problem causing tread groove fatigue damage was identified through FEA. A planar shear specimen was selected as the fatigue test specimen for the crack propagation characteristics experiment, and the tread rubber crack propagation characteristics were investigated. A semi‐theoretical and semi‐empirical formula was proposed to predict the fatigue life of tire tread grooves using strain energy density as the damage parameter. The method provides a new idea for predicting the fatigue characteristics of tire tread, which is of great engineering significance and academic value for the subsequent study of the fatigue characteristics of tires.