Advanced Tire Mechanics

This book highlights the mechanics of tire performance, offering detailed explanations of deriving basic equations for the fundamental properties of tires, and discussing ways to improve tire performance using these equations. It also compares the theory with practical measurements. The book commences with composite mechanics, which is the fundamental theory for belt and carcass tires, and covers classical, modified and discrete lamination theory. It then addresses the theory of tire shape and spring properties and the mechanics of tread pattern contact properties, as was well as the performance of various tires. This comprehensive book is a valuable resource for engineers involved in tire design and offers unique insights and examples of improvement of tire performances.

Professor Yukio Nakajima received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Akron, in 1985. From 2000-2010 he was Director of the tire research division at the Bridgestone Corporation, where he developed technologies related to tire mechanics, such as noise, wear, maneuverability, RR, snow traction, and then went on to study the application of computational mechanics to tire design by combining FEA with optimization techniques. Since 2010 he has been a Professor at the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering at Kogakuin University in Japan. His research interests include tire mechanics and computational mechanics.