Research Projects

Rolling resistance (RR) in tyres contributes to nearly 15-20% of the total fuel consumption in automobiles. Tyres with low RR are called ``Green Tyres'' since the automobiles using them produce less greenhouse gas emissions. This project will focus on manufacturing a green tyre without compromising on the wet traction and wear performance. Currently, the development of green-tyres involves trial and error, draining the financial resources and man-hours due to the several polymer-filler combinations, which have to be tried. It is known that a higher polymer-filler interface strength results in a lower RR. In this work molecular simulations will be used to reduce the sample space of prospective green tyre materials based on the polymer-filler interface strength. The design of a green tyre will be facilitated by developing and implementing validated constitutive equations using smoothed finite element method (FEM) in ABAQUS. The designed green tyre will be manufactured by MRF.