Proceedings of the ASME 2011 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences &
Computers and Information in Engineering Conference
August 28-31, 2011, Washington, DC, USA
OPTIMIZATION OF A NON-PNEUMATIC TIRE FOR REDUCED ROLLING
RESISTANCE
Mallikarjun Veeramurthy
Research Assistant
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Clemson University
Clemson, SC 29634-0921
vveeram@clemson.edu
Lonny L.Thompson
Associate Professor
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Clemson University
Clemson, SC 29634-0921
lonny@clemson.edu
ABSTRACT
Recently, the development of non-pneumatic tires (NPT) such
as the Michelin Tweel is receiving increased attention due to
potential advantages over pneumatic tires, including
characteristics of rolling resistance (RR). This study focuses on
the design of a NPT based on properties of vertical stiffness and
rolling energy loss. Using a finite element (FE) model, a
parametric study is conducted to study the effect on vertical
stiffness and RR response considering two design variables; (a)
thickness of the spokes, and, (b) the shear band thickness of the
NPT. Using the two geometric variables, a design of
experiments (DOE) is performed to study the effect on both RR
and vertical displacement. Results from the DOE are used to
create response surface models (RSM) for both the objective
function (minimal RR) and a constraint on vertical deflection.
The analytical RSM function is optimized for minimizing the
rolling loss subjected to the given constraint. In addition a
design sensitivity study is performed to evaluate the influence
of the design variables on the output response. Results indicate
that both variables have significant effect on RR, with the shear
band thickness having the greater effect.
Key Words: Rolling resistance (RR), Non-Pneumatic Tire
(NPT), Design of Experiments, Optimization
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IDETC/CIE 2011
DETC2011-4
Jaehyung Ju
Research Associate
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Clemson University
Clemson, SC 29634-0921
jju@clemson.edu
Joshua D.Summers
Associate Professor
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Clemson University
Clemson, SC 29634-0921
joshua.summers@ces.clemson.edu
1. INTRODUCTION
The development of non-pneumatic tires (NPT) such as the
Michelin Tweel [1] is receiving increased attention due to
potential advantages over pneumatic tires. NPT concepts must
take into account the critical characteristics of a tire namely
mass, stiffness, durability, surface contact pressure and rolling
resistance. The NPT concept described in [1] consists of a
composite ring, with at least two circumferential
reinforcements separated by a radial distance. The material
between the reinforcements is called a shear beam, since during
rolling the material deforms primarily in pure shear. It is the
design of this shear beam which allows for the potential for a
relatively uniform surface contact distribution with the ground
under load. A uniform distribution of spoke pairs is designed to
connect the ring to the hub of the wheel. The spokes and ring
are manufactured in a mold with imbedded reinforcements. A
rubber tread is bonded to the outer ring to provide traction. The
spokes and the shear beam use polyurethane (PU) materials
which exhibit less viscoelastic behavior than synthetic rubber
materials used in pneumatic tires, thus given the NPT potential
for less energy loss during rolling. The use of hyperelastic
materials such as PU is important because of their shearing
properties which contribute to the flexibility, energy loss,
damping and the pressure distribution between the NPT and the
road. Rolling resistance of the tire is the most important factor
contributing to the vehicle fuel consumption and it also raises
1 Copyright © 2011 by ASME
 the temperature of the tire [2-7]. The rolling resistance (RR)
can be defined by the energy dissipated per distance rolled,
Wd
FR 
D
In the above FR is the rolling resistance, Wd is the energy
dissipated D the distance rolled by the tire.
With the use of polyurethane (PU) having low viscoelastic
energy loss than that of synthetic rubber, the energy loss of the
NPT may reduce and this may result in the design of fuel
efficient tire [8]. The main component which contributes to the
energy loss of the NPT is the shear band due to the shear
loading at the contact area. Hence the shear band acts as the key
component in determining the energy efficiency of the NPT [9].
Other components which contribute to the energy loss are the
spokes and the tread. The usage of materials and their volume
play an important role as they help in reduction of cost and
rolling resistance without compromising the stiffness of the
structure.

2. FINITE ELEMENT MODEL

A two dimensional NPT finite element model is considered for

analysis with ABAQUS/Standard. The finite element model is
shown in Figure 1 2D Finite Element Model.
As described in the introduction the NPT FE model consists of
a rigid hub, flexible spokes, inner and outer reinforcements,
continuous shear band and the tread. The shear band is
sandwiched between the inner and the outer reinforcements.
The model is designed to have an outer diameter of 482.6 mm.
The tread has a thickness of 4 mm. The inner/outer
Figure 1 2D Finite Element Model
reinforcement has a thickness of 0.5mm. For this study, spoke
thickness and shear band thickness are the design variables. Table 1. Material properties for reinforcements [10-12]
The inner/outer reinforcements and spokes are modeled with
beams elements. The shear layer and the tread are modeled as
2D planar continuum elements. The rigid hub, spokes, inner Young’s
reinforcement, shear layer, outer reinforcement and the tread Density, ρs Modulus, Es Poisson’s
are assembled together with the tie constraint. The road acts as Base Material [kg/m3] [GPa] Ratio, νs
a rigid body and is constrained in all degrees of freedom. A Aluminum-Alloy
surface to surface contact (Standard) interaction is defined (7075-T6) 2800 72 0.33
between the road and the NPT. Friction is defined at the
contact. The value of coefficient of friction is 0.15.
Steel, high strength
7800 210 0.29
The inner reinforcement is modeled as aluminum alloy and the (ANSI 4340)
outer reinforcement is modeled as high strength steel.
Mechanical properties are shown in the Table 1. The spokes,
shear beam and the tread are modeled as hyperelastic materials 3. HYPERELASTIC AND VISCOELASTIC MATERIAL
with viscoelastic behavior. The spokes and the shear beam MODELS
consists of the same materials namely PU and the tread is
modeled as rubber. The beam elements in the model are Nonlinear hyperelastic material models are defined for PU and
modeled as B21 (2-node linear beam) and the solid elements Rubber. Experimental test data of an ether based PU elastomer
are modeled as CPE4R (Bilinear plane stress quadrilateral, is used for this application [13]. Nominal stress versus nominal
reduced integration hourglass control).

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 strain data from uniaxial, biaxial and planar test are used for
defining the material model. Ogden strain energy potential is
used to fit the experimental results. Table 3. Viscoelastic Prony series (N=3) constants of a PU and
synthetic rubber [13, 14]

The general form of the Ogden strain energy potential is

Poly Urethane (PU) Synthetic rubber

W  1 , 2 , 3    i  1  2  3  3
N
i i i

i 1 i i
gi τi gi τi
Where λi (i=1,2, and 3) are the stretches in the principal 1 0.125 0.002 0.2 0.002
directions. Hyperelastic property of synthetic rubber for the
tread is also represented by the Ogden strain energy potential. 2 0.125 0.02 0.2 0.02
The experimental data (nominal stress versus strain of uniaxial,
biaxial and planar) are used to define the model [14]. The
3 0.125 0.2 0.2 0.2
hyperelastic material coefficients of the PU and synthetic
rubber are shown in Table 2. An initial shear modulus of PU
under simple shear is 11.3MPa. The initial shear modulus of
synthetic rubber under simple shear is 6.78 MPa.
Time domain viscoelasticity is defined for finite strain 4. LOADS AND BOUNDARY CONDITIONS
applications where the rate dependent elastic response is
defined along with the hyperelastic material models. The objective of the problem is to numerically measure the
Viscoelastic behavior is defined by a shear relaxation modulus rolling resistance per unit distance FR and the vertical deflection
expressed in terms of a Prony series given by the equation of the NPT for different values of the geometric design
variables. The NPT is subjected to a vertical load of magnitude
 N
 3000 N at the hub center and rolled to a distance of 1 meter.
GR (t )  G0 1   g i (1  et / i ) 
P
The analysis consists of two steps namely the Load and the Roll
 k 1  step. In the first step, the static vertical load is applied, and
where GR(t) is the shear relaxation modulus, Go is the maintained in the second step. For the second-step a quasi-
instantaneous shear modulus of a material, and gip and τip are static analysis is performed to study the time dependent
parameters used to fit experimental data. The data is given in viscoelastic material response in the NPT. Two boundary
the ascending order for three terms (N=3) in the Prony series. conditions are defined namely the ground and the center (wheel
The Prony series constants for PU and synthetic rubber are hub center of the NPT). In first step, ‘Center’ is set free in y
shown in the direction and rests of the DOF’s are constrained. In the second
step, rotation DOF (around z direction) and translational DOF
Table 3. (y direction) are set free. In addition to that the translation DOF
(x direction) is set to a value of 1 meter. ‘Ground’ is
Table 2. Material parameters of the Ogden hyperelastic
constrained in all degrees of freedom for both the analysis
strain function for the PU and synthetic rubber [13, 14]
steps. The energy loss Wd is numerically measured from the
ALLCD history output in ABAQUS. ALLCD is the energy
Poly Urethane (PU) Synthetic rubber dissipated due the creep effect of the viscoelastic materials.
The vertical deflection at the hub center is measured from field
outputs.
i
µi αi µi αi
5. PARAMETRIC STUDY
1 13.546 1.513 13.356 1.633
Before performing the optimization, a parametric study is
2 -2.338 2.212 -6.631 1.9 conducted to determine the effects of each geometric design
variable, spoke thickness and shear band thickness, on the
3 0.093 -2.471 0.058 -2.456 rolling resistance (RR) response FR, and vertical stiffness
defined by K = (3000 N) /  where  is the vertical deflection
of the hub center. Vertical stiffness and RR are important
design parameter of the NPT as it influences the vehicle
performance characteristics. Hence it is important to design the

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 NPT with a reduced RR without compromising the overall Similar effects can be observed when the thickness of the
stiffness characteristics of the tire. spokes is varied while keeping a fixed shear band thickness of
12.7 mm. Figure 4 and Figure 5 shows the variation of RR and
In the first parametric study, the shear band thickness is varied
the stiffness when the spoke thickness is varied.
with a fixed spoke thickness of 3 mm. Figure 2 Variation of RR
with respect to the change in shear band thickness (constant
spoke thickness = 3mm)shows the variation of the FR with
respect to the change in the shear band thickness. It is observed 40
that the FR of the NPT is reduced with the increase in shear

Rolling resistance (N)

band thickness. This implies that when more volume of 35
material in the shear band is used, the NPT becomes more
resistant to the shear effect and less energy is lost while rolling. 30

45 25
Rolling resistance (N)

40 20

35 15
3 3.5 4 4.5 5
30
Spoke thickness (mm)
25

20 Figure 4 Variation of RR with respect to the change in spoke

thickness (constant shear band thickness = 12.7mm)
10 15 20
Shear band Thickness (mm)
600
Figure 2 Variation of RR with respect to the change in shear band 500
Stiffness (N/mm)

thickness (constant spoke thickness = 3mm)

400
Figure 3 shows the variation of the vertical stiffness K, of the
NPT with respect to the change in shear band thickness. It is 300
observed that the stiffness increased linearly with the increase
in shear band thickness. The increase in thickness of the shear 200
band makes the NPT more rigid and thereby increasing the 100
stiffness of the structure.
0
450 3 3.5 4 4.5 5
400 Spoke thickness (mm)
Stiffness (N/mm)

350
300 Figure 5 Variation of NPT vertical stiffness with respect to the
change in spoke thickness (constant shear band thickness = 12.7
250
mm)
200
150 6. OPTIMIZATION PROBLEM STATEMENT
100
10 15 20 A goal of the present work is to conduct a geometric size
optimization of the shear band thickness and spoke thickness of
Shear band thickness (mm) the NPT by minimizing the RR subjected to a constraint on
vertical stiffness as measured by the vertical deflection.
Figure 3 Variation of NPT vertical stiffness with respect to the Objective Function: Minimize FR
change in shear band thickness (constant spoke thickness = 3mm)

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 Constraint: 8 mm <  < 11 mm results (RR and the deflection) for the corresponding designs
are shown in Table 4.
Design Variable Limits:
3 mm < x < 5 mm Table 4 Data from the DOE

10 mm < y < 20 mm Thickness of

Thickness of Deflection
Shear band RR force (N)
where FR is the RR,  is the vertical deflection, x is the Spokes (mm) (mm)
(mm)
thickness of the spokes and y is the thickness of the shear beam. 3 11.11 11.35 39.68
Before performing the optimization a design of experiments 3.22 13.33 9.38 34.687
(DOE) is conducted by running several numerical experiments 3.44 12.22 9.51 36.12
3.67 18.89 6.34 26.43
over the design space defined by the limiting values of the
3.89 17.78 6.26 26.94
design variables. A response surface model (RSM) is then
4.11 14.44 7 30.48
generated as an approximate analytical function relating the 4.33 20 4.94 23.46
design variables and the output response parameters. The RSM 4.56 15.56 5.74 27.32
and optimization is done using ISIGHT a commercially 4.78 10 7.82 36.28
available optimization tool. The flowchart below represents the 5 16.67 4.68 24.22
workflow of the optimization process.
Sensitivity study is conducted to study the influence of the
design variables on the response parameter namely the RR.
FEA Numerical test Normality test is conducted to check whether the data is
with ABAQUS normally distributed. For conducting this test, the data from the
DOE for both the design variables is imported to MINITAB
(commercially available statistical tool). Normality test is
DESIGN OF performed based on Anderson-Darling (AD) statistics. The AD
EXPERIMENTS (DOE) statistics tests whether a sample of data follows a specified
distribution. If the p-value from the AD test is higher than the
chosen significance level, we can conclude that the data follows
a normal distribution. Results of the test shows a p-value of
RESPONSE SURFACE 0.955 (thickness of spokes) and 0.956 (thickness of shear band)
MODEL (RSM) at 95% confidence level (alpha=0.05). This verifies that the
data is normally distributed. Figure 7 shows the probability plot
based on AD statistics.
OPTIMIZATION
(Sequential quadratic Probability Plot of Thickness of spokes
Normal
programming)
99
Mean 4
StDev 0.6738
95 N 10
AD 0.142
90
P-Value 0.955
80
VALIDATION with 70
Percent

60
FEA Models 50
40
30
20
Figure 6 Flowchart representing the Optimization process 10

7. DESIGN OF EXPERIMENTS AND DESIGN 1

SENSITIVITY STUDY 2 3 4 5 6
Thickness of spokes

Design of experiments (DOE) is conducted to observe the
responses of RR and vertical deflection for combinations of the
design variables. The DOE technique used here is Latin
Hypercube. Latin hypercube is the multi-dimensional extension
of Latin squares sampling method [15]. Initially, the Latin
Hypercube design is performed for ten design points. The
Figure 7 Probability plot for the Thickness of the spokes
The effect of the design variables on the response parameter is
studied using the Pareto chart of standardized effects [16]. It
determines the absolute value of the effects which is indicated
by the red line on the chart. Effect of any parameter which

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 extends past the line indicates that the parameter is potentially
important. The line indicating the absolute value corresponds to
alpha=0.05 which means that the effects have been calculated at
95% confidence level. Figure 8 shows that both the design
variables play a significant role in affecting the response
parameter (RR) with thickness of shear beam having a greater
effect. Since both design parameters have significant influence
on the RR response, the optimization is performed with both.
Pareto Chart of the Standardized Effects
(response is RR, Alpha = .05)
2.45
F actor N ame
A ST
B S BT
9. OPTIMIZATION ALGORITHM
The RSM of both the RR (objective function) and the
deflection (constraint) appears as a uni-modal function within
the design space. Since the RSM is a uni-modal function, a
gradient based optimization algorithm namely the sequential
quadratic programming (SQP) is chosen to carry out the
optimization process. Sequential quadratic programming
(SQP) is commonly used in solving nonlinear constrained
optimization problems [17].
10. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

B The multivariable, single constraint optimization was

performed and the result of the optimization is shown in Table
5. Figure 10 shows the history of the RR objective function
Term

A from ISIGHT. The algorithm took a total of 19 iterations to

reach the optimum value as shown in the plot.

AB
35

Objective Function (RR)

34
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18
Standardized Effect 33
32
Figure 8 Pareto Chart of standardized effects
31
8. RESPONSE SURFACE MODEL (RSM) 30
29
The response surface model (RSM) is developed based on a
28
regression approach. The tabulated results from the DOE are
used to create Quadratic response surface models for the RR 1 6 11 16 21
and vertical deflection. The quadratic RSM is represented by a
second-order polynomial of the form, No. of Iterations

f ( x, y)  c0  c1 x  c2 y  c3 x 2  c4 y 2  c5 xy Figure 10 History of Objective function

The response surface model for the RR is graphically shown in
Figure 9. The results were then validated in ABAQUS by setting the
design variables to the optimized values. The output from
ABAQUS is shown in the tabular column.

Table 5 Results of Sequential quadratic programming

Parameter Optimum Values Validation using

Abaqus
Thickness of 3 3
Spokes (mm)
Thickness of Shear 17.79 17.79
band (mm)
Deflection (mm) 7.99 7.92

RR (N) 29.19 29.15

Figure 9 Response surface model for the RR objective function as

functions of spoke thickness (ST) and shear band thickness (SBT)

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 A DOE of 20 experiments was also performed and compared to 40% increase in shear band thickness in comparison to the
the results of DOE with 10 experiments. The results were found reference configuration. This has subsequently increased the
out to be within 0.6% of each other, indicating the value has maximum contact pressure for the optimized configuration.
reached an accurate optimum. The results matched the output Load-Deflection plot
from ABAQUS with 0.14% for the RR objective function. 5000
Reference configuration
4500 Optimized configuration
The optimized values for both the design variables as discussed
4000
in the Table 5 are 3 mm and 17.79 mm of thicknesses of the
spokes and the shear band, respectively. We note the value of 3 3500
mm for the spoke thickness reached the lower limit set in the
3000
constrained optimization problem. For reference, the values of

Load (N)
the spoke thickness and the shear band thickness used in a 2500
previous design were 4 mm and 12.7 mm, respectively [8]. 2000
Using the reference values, the deflection was 8.01 mm with a
RR of 34.25N. Different results can be achieved by setting 1500

different bounds for the constraints, e.g. a different deflection 1000

range, δ. In Figure 11, a comparison of RR is made between the
500
optimal values and the reference values, for different vertical
loads. These results confirm RR is reduced for the optimal 0
0 5 10 15
values compared to the reference values. Deflection (mm)

Figure 12 Load deflection curve for the NPT

Contact pressure variation along the path of contact

0.16
Reference configuration
70 Optimized configuration 0.14 Optimized configuration

Original configuration
60 0.12
Rolling resistance (N)

Contact Pressure (Mpa)

50 0.1

40
0.08
30
0.06
20
0.04
10
0.02
0
1000 2000 3000 4000 0
25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65
Load (N) Contact Patch (mm)

Figure 13 Contact Pressure distribution for both the

Figure 11 Comparison of RR of the original and the optimized
configurations for different loads
The load deflection curve for the optimized configuration is
shown in Figure 12. Comparison of the load deflection plot for
both the configurations shows a small variation in slope which
explains a small variation in stiffness. Hence for a similar load
deflection behavior, the optimized configuration results in less
energy loss. The contact pressure distributions of the optimized
and the reference configuration are shown in Figure 13. The
maximum values of contact pressure at the vertical force of
3000N for the optimized and reference configurations are
0.142MPa and 0.121MPa, respectively. It should be noted that
there was no constraint imposed on the contact pressure for the
optimization process. The optimized configuration resulted in
configurations
11. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK
A constrained design optimization was conducted to determine
optimal values for spoke thickness, and shear band thickness, to
achieve minimum rolling resistance (RR) of the NPT with
constraint on the vertical stiffness. The influences of the two
design variables on the response parameters were also studied.
Sensitivity analysis shows that the shear band thickness has a
greater effect on the RR. Both the design variables play a
significant role in affecting the response parameter. The
optimized result shows a 40% increase in shear band thickness
and 25% decrease in spoke thickness to a reference design used
in previous studies. The optimized configuration results in a

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 17.49% reduction in energy loss compared to the reference
configuration with nearly the same value of stiffness. In future
work, additional constraints could be considered, such as
uniformity of contact pressure and durability. Another study
which can be performed is to evaluate how much the tire
vibration modes change after the optimization process since
they determine the tire comfort properties.
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