Modeling and Analysis of Non-Pneumatic Tyres with Hexagonal Honeycomb Spokes

Abstract

A pneumatic tyre is made of an airtight inner core filled with pressurized air. Pneumatic tyre have been dominant in the world market due to many advantages like low mass design, low vertical stiffness and low contact pressure. However, it have certain disadvantages like the possibility of a flat while driving, complex manufacturing procedure, the required maintenance for proper internal air pressure. Hence Non-Pneumatic tyres are introduced to overcome these disadvantages. Non-pneumatic tyres (NPT) are introduced with a compliant cellular solid spoke component which functions as air of a pneumatic tire. This project investigates hexagonal honeycomb spokes for NPT tire under macroscopic uni-axial loading. The spokes of an NPT undergoes tension-compression cycle while the tyre rolls. The spokes of an NPT is required to have both stiffness and resilience, which are conflicting requirements. Three types of honeycomb spokes are designed in AUTOCAD, namely A, B and C. Three dimensional models are created in CATIA. The mass of the designed tyres are found out. ANSYS finite element analysis is used to study about the deformation and stresses developed in different type of honeycomb spokes. Type C honeycomb spokes are found to be better considering both fatigue resistance and lower mass design.