Tyre Pattern Features and their Effects on Passenger Vehicle Drag

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Citation for the original published paper (version of record):

Hobeika, T., Sebben, S. (2018). Tyre Pattern Features and their Effects on Passenger Vehicle Drag.
SAE International Journal of Passenger Cars - Mechanical Systems, 11(5): 401-413.
http://dx.doi.org/10.4271/2018-01-0710

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 2018-01-0710

Tyre Pattern Features and their Effects on Passenger Vehicle Drag

Teddy Hobeika and Simone Sebben
Chalmers University of Technology

Abstract average velocity of 46 km/h, in comparison to the previous 33 km/h in

NEDC. This increases the importance of aerodynamics where a 5%
In light of the drive for energy efficiency and low CO2 emissions, reduction in aerodynamic drag on a typical passenger car would result
extensive research is performed to reduce vehicle aerodynamic drag. in a reduction of 1.5 g/km of CO2 .
The wheels are relatively shielded from the main flow compared to the
exterior of the passenger car, however, they are typically responsible for Additionally, the more thorough WLTP procedure requires
around 25% of the overall vehicle drag. This contribution is large as the manufacturers to report emissions for all variants of any certain car.
wheels and tyres protrude into the flow and change the flow structure Meaning that if a vehicle is sold with different rims and tyres, then the
around the vehicle underbody. Given that the tyre is the first part of the manufacturer needs to be aware of the changes in emissions these various
wheel to get in contact with the oncoming flow, its shape and features combinations could cause, which have to be reported accordingly. More
have a significant impact on the flow pattern that develops. importantly, manufacturers would need to take that into consideration
while optimizing the vehicle’s aerodynamics. The interest in wheel
This study aims at identifying the general effects of two main tyre drag changes can be noted in numerous publications describing the
features, the longitudinal rain grooves and lateral pattern grooves, using aerodynamic development of vehicles [4–6]. This follows many studies
both CFD and wind tunnel tests. This is performed by cutting generic revolving around the aerodynamics of isolated wheels and their effects
representations of these details into identical slick tyres. Combinations [7–10].
of the two resulted in four physical tyre patterns that are tested on both
a production and a closed rim. The test setup is reproduced in CFD The vehicle exterior receives a lot of attention from aerodynamicists
taking the tyre deformation under loading into account. Due to the tyre’s and designers. It begins with a concept that quickly evolves into clay
deformation, Moving Reference Frame - grooves (MRFg) was used to models that can be tested and evaluated in the wind tunnel. This takes
model rotation, while the rim spokes were modelled with the sliding place early in the development process before any mechanical parts are
mesh approach. manufactured, or even designed sometimes. This allows for optimization
work to be performed on the vehicle exterior from very early design
The results indicate that the rain grooves play a significant role in reducing stages using both tests and simulations. However, the rims and tyres
drag when introduced on a slick tyre both in test and simulations, while expected to be equipped on the car are usually not produced yet, and
the results from adding lateral grooves were less consistent dependent on will not be until late stages of the vehicle development. This poses a
the rim-tyre combination. The interaction between the longitudinal and conflict where the vehicle could experience a sudden change in drag
lateral grooves could be observed on the overall vehicle drag. In general, when the physical tyre and rim geometries are introduced. The wheels
CFD is able to predict the drag changes for different tyre patterns with are typically responsible for 25 % of the overall vehicle drag even though
good accuracy for the open rim, however the closed rim case proved to they are relatively shielded [11]. For that reason, the possibility of
be more challenging. modelling rims and tyres in Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
simulations to detect this change, as soon as a Computer Aided Design
(CAD) representation is available, can alert the aerodynamicist to these
Introduction changes before production. It could also open up the possibility to
influence the rim and tyre designs to achieve lower drag figures.
Active steps are being taken by governments, manufacturers, and even
consumers to reduce CO2 emissions in an attempt to contain global
Big challenges for CFD present themselves when modelling the wheels
warming. This is especially important for road vehicle manufacturers,
as they are rotating parts located in a highly turbulent flow environment
as road vehicles are responsible for more than 15% of the total CO2
with numerous separations and vortices. Several numerical and
emissions in the EU, according to the European Energy Agency [1]. This
experimental investigations have looked into rim design and its effects
has also led to the introduction of strict regulations with more realistic
on aerodynamic forces as well as flow patterns [12–15]. The numerical
driving cycles, as well as a thorough procedure for measuring CO2
studies investigating rims usually included a de-featured tyre, known
emissions of road vehicles. This procedure is known as the Worldwide
as slick, when comparing various rims. Experimental studies on the
harmonized Light vehicles Test Procedure (WLTP) and is gradually
other hand tend to use fully detailed production tyres which results
being implemented. The European Union Council also aims to bring
in different flow structures in the vicinity of the wheels. Interactions
CO2 emissions for car fleets down to a 95 g/km on average by 2020 [2, 3].
between the rims and tyres could be seen in some cases rendering it
This challenge pushes the boundaries of engineering and suddenly even
difficult to optimize each separately[11, 16, 17]. The rim modelling is
the smallest of CO2 savings start to become valuable. The new driving
typically simple and can be achieved by physically sliding the mesh,
cycle introduced is known as the Worldwide harmonized Light vehicles
although it usually comes with an increase in computational costs as
Test Cycle (WLTC), which resembles more realistic driving conditions
well as the requirement of having an unsteady simulation setup.
than its predecessor, the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC). One
of the key factors it includes is an extra-high speed stint and an overall
Modelling the tyre rotation is more difficult given its deformation under
vehicle load and contact with the ground, as well as the fact that it while they are mounted on the 17" x 7" production rims, used in this
changes slightly while rotating. Typically, a rotating wall boundary study. The nominal inflation pressure for these tyres is 1.4 bar which is
condition can be used for modelling slick tyres, which makes it possible significantly lower than typical passenger car tyres. The racing oriented
to keep the mesh fixed. However, when more accurate results and tyre construction delivers a very stiff tyre which preserves its profile
experimental validation are needed, the tyre pattern effect needs to be even when inflated up to 2.6 bar, as has been observed after comparing
represented, and the effects of the different pattern features need to be 3D scans from the 1.4 and 2.6 bar pressures. Given the unaltered tyre
well understood. Experimental work on tyres have previously concluded geometry during the inflation pressure tests, even after such a large
that a more curved tyre shoulder, a smoother side wall, and finer lateral change in internal pressure, it can be assumed that the tyre geometry
grooves are desired features for low drag tyres [18]. Although similar changes due to internal centrifugal forces from rotation can be neglected.
trends for tyre curvature effect and side wall detail sensitivity could be This effect is a property of the chosen tyres and would not be the same
seen in CFD simulations, predicting the lateral grooves effects remains for conventional passenger car tyres, which would experience significant
challenging, as a simple rotating wall boundary condition would result deformation. However, the tyres are not completely rigid and they do
in over predicted drag values [16, 19]. For that reason, and due to the deform under the weight of the car, an external force, thus resulting in
fine meshing required to resolve these lateral grooves, investigations bulging of the side wall close to the ground. A tyre contact patch is also
into replacing the pattern with surface roughness have been considered formed and as expected the front contact patch is significantly larger
[20]. Also, investigations of having a fully moving mesh, by applying an than the rear contact patch, given the forward offset centre of gravity of
immersed boundary method approach, has been implemented but with the car. The contact patch has been measured in the stationary position
the current limitation of keeping the tyre geometry undeformed [21]. A and replicated in the simulations. The contact patch imprint is obtained
Moving Reference Frame - grooves (MRFg) approach for modelling the using spray paint where the patch width can be identified down to a few
lateral grooves has also been proposed in [19] and has shown promising millimetres. The patch length however is over estimated as the spray
results. paint cannot reach into the tight gap between the tyre and ground. Yet,
this is acceptable for simulation purposes as meshing this small gap is
The work presented in this paper addresses many of the discussed difficult and it needs to be simplified.
challenges through the use of special physical tyres which are cut to
desired specifications. It was thus possible to isolate the individual To create the different tyre patterns, manual cutting is performed with
effects of rain grooves and lateral grooves in the wind tunnel tests. Their high accuracy and repeatability in order to obtain four total tyre patterns:
local and global effects are further discussed using CFD. The simulations slick (S), rain grooved(R), lateral grooved (G), and full pattern (D). The
setup sensitivity has been investigated and a sliding mesh approach is rain and lateral grooves geometries are simplified representations of
implemented for rim simulations combined with an improved MRFg common passenger car tyre patterns, designed within the limitations of
approach for modelling the tyre presented in [22]. The tyre feature the cutting tools and the tyre tread depth. This simplified representation
predictions obtained from CFD, for two sets of rims, are compared to allowed for manual CAD implementation of the grooves to obtain fully
the wind tunnel test measurements. deformed detailed tyres, which are simple to mesh and simulate. All
grooves have been implemented in CAD on the deformed slick tyre
Methodology representation so that the tyre deformation is identical. The tyres are
all new with a generally smooth surface finish, unlike conventional
passenger car tyres. The CFD representation of the tyres and the
In this section, a detailed description of the physical test objects and
physical tyres can be seen in Figure 1.
their representation in the virtual models is presented, followed by the
experimental and numerical setups.

Physical and Virtual Geometry

The tests are performed on a production Volvo S60 with a modified

rigid suspension, which allows for the control of the wheel centre in
relation to the trim heights. By doing so, it is ensured that the wheel
centre height for any testing velocity will be the same as the stationary
position. This allows for matching the wheel centre position in the CFD (a) Slick(S) (b) Rain (c) Lateral (d) Detailed (D)
simulations without doing any additional measurements during the test. grooved (R) grooved (G)
The rigid suspension brackets added on the test object are also added
Figure 1: Investigated tyre sets: physical (top) and virtual (bottom).
in the simulations for the sake of completeness. The cooling inlets
have been closed with the help of a stiff aluminium plate which was
reproduced in the virtual model as well. For the same reason, the split
lines along the hood, trunk and rear bumper have all been taped. All tyres are tested on an open production rim with an additional
closed rim configuration, where an aluminium sheet metal is bolted
Reproducing tyre geometries accurately in simulations is one of the most on to the rim. A similar replication of the geometry is performed in
challenging tasks facing aerodynamicists today, due to the complexity of CFD thus preserving the rim spokes and the internal rim geometry. A
the pattern and the wheel deformation due to rotation. In this work, Avon representation of the rims can be seen in Figure 2.
racing tyres are selected providing certain advantages which simplifies
the tyre modelling challenge. These advantages mainly arise from the
tyres, availability in slick condition and its high stiffness. Experimental Setup
First, in order to ensure similar tyre profile and deformations, all tyres The tests were conducted in the full scale Volvo Cars Aerodynamic Wind
used in this study are initially slick tyres of the same size (210/635R17), Tunnel (PVT) at a speed of 100 kph. The tunnel is a closed loop type
with a lateral width 218 mm and a diameter of 640 mm. The tyre with a slotted wall test section and a cross sectional area of 27 m2 . It is
dimension measurements are performed after 3D scanning of the tyres equipped with a five-belt moving ground system with tangential blowers

2
 flow physics as it directly affects the Courant number (CFL). Ideally,
the CFL should be below 1 in the vast majority of the domain, which
would be the equivalent of a time step of 5x10-5 seconds with the
current mesh resolution. However, the computational costs for such a
small time step are not affordable within the available computational
resources for the project. Given that the flow is iterated several times
within each time step, and that a second order temporal discretization
is used, larger time steps could also be feasible. This is investigated
by performing simulations on the reference case, closed rims and slick
tyres, with multiple time step sizes and comparing the drag and lift
distributions. The times step sizes investigated are: 5x10-5 , 1x10-4 ,
2x10-4 , and 4x10-4 seconds. An investigation into the averaging interval
(a) Open rim (OR) (b) Closed rim (CR)
is also performed by extending the two seconds interval to 4 seconds for
Figure 2: Geometry representations of the rims. the reference case.

All simulations are done at 100 kph with the wheel rotation modelled
to simulate road conditions. The tunnel is accredited according the using a sliding mesh approach for modelling the rim spokes rotation and
European Accreditation procedure EA 4/02 and has a one count (0.001 an MRFg (Moving Reference Frame - grooves) approach for modelling
Cd ) measurement uncertainty for drag coefficient measurements within the tyre rotation. The MRFg approach combines the rotating wall
the same test, more details about the wind tunnel can be found in [23]. boundary condition on the tyre surface and the MRF approach inside
Only force measurements were performed during the test campaign. the lateral grooves. The details of its implementation and sensitivity
These are converted to aerodynamic coefficients, which are corrected analysis can be found in [22]. The simulations are performed in open
for wake blockage, solid blockage, and horizontal buoyancy. Figure 3 road conditions with a fully moving ground. The rectangular domain is
shows the car in the wind tunnel. 70 m long, 20 m wide, and 10 m high, with a velocity inlet, upstream of
the car, and a pressure outlet, downstream. The car geometry includes
a detailed engine bay however the cooling inlets have been sealed off
for all cases. By doing so any uncertainties from modelling the cooling
package and engine bay geometry are avoided.

Figure 3: The test vehicle in the wind tunnel with a closer look at the wheel.

Figure 4: The virtual model in the simulation domain.

Numerical setup
One mesh, for the complete domain, is built per rim which allows for all
The simulations are performed in StarCCM+ (v11.06) using a hybrid
various tyre configurations. This ensures an identical mesh for all tyre
RANS-LES turbulence modelling approach. The formulation used is
feature investigations per rim. The mesh surface sizes varied from 1 to
the Improved Delayed Detached Eddy Simulation (IDDES)[24], with
8 mm on the vehicle, with slow growth into the domain for key sensitive
second order temporal discretization and second order upwind spatial
areas around the car. Six to eight prism layers, with a first cell height of
discretization. A hybrid Gauss-Least Square Method (Gauss-LSQ)
0.01 mm, are built on all exterior surfaces which are directly exposed to
is used for gradient computation with second order accuracy. The
the main flow and are expected to have a boundary layer build up. This
simulations are solved up to a steady state k-w SST solution for
has also been performed on the wheels resulting in a y+ below one. For
initialization. Then, three seconds of physical time are computed
all other surfaces, only one prism layer with a height of 1 mm is built in
with gradual reduction of the timestep in order to allow the flow field to
order to reduce the mesh count while still ensuring a constant first cell
develop smoothly. Finally, two seconds of physical time with a timestep
height. The total mesh count ranged around 120 million cells, requiring
of 2x10-4 seconds are computed and averaged to obtain the mean flow
around 30 hours per simulation running on 2000 cores.
solution. Thus, the wheel rotates by 1 degree per time step and performs
around 28 revolutions during the averaging time.
Results and Discussion
When running an unsteady simulation it is important to choose the
averaging time and time step carefully to obtain accurate results. The The CFD methodology investigation results are presented in this section.
time step choice not only affects the sampling time but also affects the Then the CFD prediction capability for tyre modifications is compared

3
to the wind tunnel predictions. the drag or lift deviate by significant values. This further confirms that
a time step of 2x10-4 is sufficient for the simulation setup.

CFD Methodology Investigation

The effects of changing time step size on overall drag and lift coefficients
can be seen in Figure 5, where the forces are averaged for 2 seconds.
They are presented in terms of deltas to the reference setup with 5x10-5
seconds. The overall drag and lift predictions do not change significantly
for time steps of 1x10-4 and 2x10-4 seconds, while 4x10-4 deviate from
the overall drag and front lift values. Thus, for the most time efficient
approach, the 2x10-4 seconds time step is preferable as it reduces the
simulation time by 60% from the 5x10-5 s time step, as shown in Figure 6.
The increase in time step is not linearly related to the time saving since
it is accompanied with an increase in inner iterations in order to get a
converged flow field within the time step.

Figure 7: The difference in aerodynamic coefficients along the length of the car
for a 2x10-4 vs 5x10-5 s.

With the time step set, the effect of averaging time on the results is
investigated by extending the averaging interval from two seconds to
four seconds. The overall drag and lift values, as well as the cumulative
drag and lift, showed no significant deviations and this can be seen
from the cumulative Cd and Cl , along the vehicle length, plots shown in
Figure 8.

Figure 5: Changes in drag and lift distribution when varying the time step relative
to 5x10-5 s.

Figure 8: The difference in aerodynamic coefficients along the length of the car
for a 2 s vs 4 s averaging time.

An analysis of looking into the flow quantities has also been performed
by 3D mapping the complete time averaged flow fields and analysing
the deviations. It has been noted that small deviations in velocity of
the order of 1 m/s can be seen in the rear wake area of the car. This
Figure 6: Changes in simulation solving time presented in percentage relative to is not surprising given that the rear wake frequency usually is of the
5x10-5 s. order of several Hertz, and hence a time averaging of 2 s might capture
a relatively small number of cycles. However, these deviations showed
very little effect on the pressure, less that 5 Pa deviations in the flow field
However, prediction of the overall drag value is not a sufficient measure with almost no deviations on the vehicle surface. Given this general
as the distribution over the vehicle must also be similarly predicted match in flow field comparison, the 2 seconds averaging time interval
in order to enable reliable local optimization. This is investigated by predicts the numerical results with acceptable accuracy, with a little
plotting the cumulative drag difference over the vehicle in order to over half the computational resources.
confirm that the drag development over the length of the vehicle is close.
The cumulative drag is obtained by summing the local drag contribution
for each vehicle surface cell along the length of the car (x-direction). Tyre Feature: rain grooves

Figure 7 presents the deltas of cumulative drag and lift development The changes in drag resulting from adding rain grooves to slick and
along the length of the vehicle for the case of 2x10-4 vs 5x10-5 seconds lateral grooved tyres on open and closed rims can be seen in Figure 9.
time steps. It can be seen that at no point along the vehicle length does Whenever a significant trend is present, for the closed rim cases (CR-S

4
and CR-G) , as well as the open rim with lateral grooved tyre (OR-G), it
is predicted in the same direction with a similar magnitude. For the open
rim with slick tyre, OR-S, the drag changes are too small for any strong
conclusions to be drawn. The drag reduction in CFD can be traced to the

(a) Closed rim slick (CR-S)

Figure 9: The change in drag when introducing rain grooves on various wheel
configurations from wind tunnel tests and CFD simulations.

rear wheels and the base area of the car. This was unexpected since it
has been previously observed that the rain grooves reduce the stagnation
(b) Closed rim rain grooved (CR-R)
pressure on the front tyre and equalize the low pressure behind it as it
connects the two areas, [16]. However, the flow around the underbody Mean Cp
seems to change and any benefits added from this effect are equalized
by increases in drag elsewhere around the front wheel. This can be seen
−0.3 −0.2 −0.1 0.0
in Figure 10, where, despite the fluctuations around the front wheel, the
drag difference between the rain grooved tyre and the slick tyre is null Figure 11: Mean pressure coefficient distribution on the base of the car for
at the middle of the car. Further downstream the drag reduction is seen different wheel configurations.
around the rear wheel area leading to a sharp reduction around the trunk
and base.

(a) Closed rim slick (CR-S) (b) Closed rim rain grooved (CR-R)

Mean Lateral Velocity [m/s]

Figure 10: The change in drag along the length of the car when introducing rain
grooves on a closed rim wheel with slick tyres.
−5 −3 0 3 5

Figure 12: Mean lateral velocity in a plane 0.5 m behind the rear wheel centre
with in-plane streamlines.
Figure 11 shows the mean base pressure for the slick and rain grooved
tyres on a closed rim. The base pressure is higher when the rain grooves
are present as shown in Figure 11b compared to Figure 11a. Tyre feature: lateral grooves

Figure 11b also shows two strong low pressure spots on the lower outer The changes in drag resulting from adding lateral grooves to slick and
edge of the rear wheels, indicating a stronger inflow. It is the result of rain grooved tyres on open and closed rims can be seen in Figure 13.
a vortex created behind the rear wheel which moves towards the rear For the cases with the closed rim, CR-S and CR-R, the CFD prediction
wake and can be seen in Figure 12. is not correct.

5
 (a) Closed rim slick (CR-S)

Figure 13: The change in drag when introducing lateral grooves on various wheel
configurations from wind tunnel tests and CFD simulations.

The explanation for the discrepancy for both closed rim cases is not a
hundred percent clear. CFD seems to either over predict the drag with
the lateral grooves present, or under predict the drag when they are not.
The latter is the most likely scenario since, in reality the tyre shoulder is
a rough surface and not as smooth as simulated, and surface roughness in
(b) Open rim slick (OR-S)
such a sensitive area with high velocities and steep gradients could alter
the flow significantly if a separation is triggered. With the rim being
completely closed, the tyre shoulder will be the main factor determining
the flow behaviour around the wheel. The discrepancy in results between
CFD and experiments is significantly reduced with the open rim, OR-S
and OR-R, given the interaction with the rim spokes which alters and
likely dominates the flow in the close vicinity of the wheel. The effect
the rim introduces can be seen when looking at q-criterion around the
front left wheel, presented in Figure 14. The closed rim introduces very
few vortex structures, Figure 14a, while the open rim generates a small
sheet of vortices which covers most of the lower rim part, Figure 14b.

It is also worth noting that the tyre side wall in the simulations is
completely smooth unlike the test object which contains some protruding (c) Open rim lateral grooved (OR-G)
text spread in a sparse manner. This could also contribute to a slight
Mean Vorticity Magnitude [/s]
under prediction of the drag for the closed rim configurations with slicks.
The effect of this side writing would become less pronounced once
the lateral grooves are added as they introduce turbulent structures and 0 500 1000 1500 2000
vortices into the flow upstream of the side wall.
Figure 14: Isosurface of Q-criterion at 5000/s2 coloured by mean vorticity
The drag increase from adding the lateral grooves in CFD has been magnitude around the front left wheel.
directly linked to the front wheels without any major effects resulting
from the rear wheels. This is seen when plotting the change in cumulative
drag over the length of the vehicle. This is shown in Figure 15 for OR-S.
When adding the lateral grooves a sharp increase in drag takes place
around the front wheels, however when the flow stabilizes downstream
of the front wheels this increase in drag is not affected any more. Similar
behaviour has been observed with all configurations pointing to very
little change around the rear wheels.

The small vortices generated from the lateral grooves merge in the
contact patch separation, Figure 14c, and its imprint can be seen by
looking at the mean total pressure coefficient shown in Figure 16. The
outer low pressure region at the front tyre contact patch, is taller when the
lateral grooves are added. This can be seen when comparing Figure 16c
to Figure 16a which are located in a plane going through the front wheel
centre at x = 1.7. Further downstream half a meter behind the front Figure 15: The change in drag along the length of the car when introducing
lateral grooves on an open rim wheel with slick tyres.
wheel centre, at x = 2.2, this low pressure region stretches out in width
while moving away from the vehicle, which explains the lack of further
interactions downstream.

6
 is most likely the case.

Comparison to slick

The effects of adding the different grooves separately, as well as the

combined effect, on a slick tyre on both open and closed rims are
presented. To sum up the results, the predicted change in drag from the
simulations for any specific configuration is subtracted by the respective
measured change in the wind tunnel test. It can be written as

∆∆ Cd con f = (Cd con f − Cd Slick )CF D − (Cd con f − Cd Slick )WT

(a) OR-S at x=1.7 (b) OR-S at x=2.2 where Cd con f , is the drag for the configuration of interest and Cd Slick
is the drag when changing to a slick. This results in a direct comparison
of the prediction capability of CFD compared to the wind tunnel
measurements. The capabilities are summarized in Figure 17 with
a dashed line highlighting the uncertainty margin. This margin is
based on the 0.001 Cd experimental repeatability uncertainty and a
0.002 Cd simulation uncertainty estimate from the CFD methodology
investigation.

(c) OR-G at x=1.7 (d) OR-G x=2.2

Mean Total Cp

−0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0

Figure 16: Mean total pressure coefficient around the front left wheel in a plane
at the front wheel center (x=1.7) and 0.5 m downstream (x=2.2).

Figure 17: ∆∆ C d for various wheel configurations demonstrating the difference

Tyre feature: detailed pattern between the CFD prediction of tyre feature effects compared to the measured
wind tunnel values.
The effects of adding the complete detailed pattern are summarized in
Table 1. The wind tunnel tests show that the drag is reduced by 0.004 Cd
when a pattern is added on the tyre for the closed rim case. A negligible For the open rim cases, OR-R, OR-S, and OR-D, as well as the closed
increase of 0.001 Cd can be noted for the open rim case. This result has rim case, CR-R, the prediction is well within the uncertainty margins.
previously been noted by Wickern et al. [11] with 0.005 Cd reduction However, for the closed rim cases, CR-G and CR-D, the results lie
and 0.002 Cd increase even though the test object, wheels, and tyres are slightly outside the uncertainty margin. This is not surprising as it has
completely different. It is also worth highlighting that the experimental previously been discussed, in the lateral grooves section, that the closed
results presented by Wickern et al. [11] were obtained in a very different rim case has shown an unexpected increase in drag when the lateral
experimental setup. The wind tunnel was equipped with a fully moving grooves are added.
ground and with the vehicle suspended from a sting support through the
rear with an internal balance. Therefore it is likely that the reduction in
drag for the closed rim case is independent of the wind tunnel’s moving
ground systems.

Table 1: The change in drag when adding the detailed pattern on a slick tyre for
closed and open rim configurations.

WT CFD Wickern et al. [11]

CR -0.004 0.000 -0.005
OR 0.001 0.001 0.002

The wind tunnel results are predicted well in CFD with the open rim
case, however the closed rim case is not. Again, when simulating with a
closed rim, it is not clear if the detailed tyre configuration is being over Figure 18: The change in drag along the length of the car when introducing
predicted or if the slick tyre case has been under predicted but the latter detailed pattern on an open rim wheel with slick tyres.

7
Figure 18 shows the cumulative Cd , along the length of the car, difference
between detailed and slick pattern on an open rim. The increase is
drag around the front wheel is a result from both the lateral and rain
grooves. As described previously in the lateral grooves section, the
same effect of enlarged contact patch separation occurs and can be seen
when comparing Figure 19a to Figure 16a. The low pressure region also
stretches in width as the flow moves downstream. As the rain grooves
are present in this case, the flow is slightly altered leading to an increase
in pressure behind the tyre at the ground yet a reduction in pressure
around the side skirts, seen in Figure 19b. These effects seem to cancel
out resulting in a 0.005 net increase in Cd at x = 3 m, similar to the case
of the open rim with lateral grooved tyre (OR-G), Figure 15.

(a) Open rim slick (OR-S)

(a) OR-D at x=1.7 (b) OR-D at x=2.2 (b) Open rim detailed (OR-D)

Mean Total Cp Mean Cp

−0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 −0.3 −0.2 −0.1 0.0

Figure 19: Mean total pressure coefficient around the front left wheel in a plane Figure 20: Mean pressure coefficient distribution on the base of the car for
at the front wheel centre (x=1.7) and 0.5 m downstream (x=2.2) different wheel configurations.

Adding the tyre features also showed significant changes in ventilation

moments. This is mainly attributed to the lateral grooves and can be
As the flow travels further downstream a reduction in drag occurs at
seen when comparing the lateral grooved tyres (G) to rain grooved tyres
the rear wheels and the base resulting in only 0.001 Cd increase overall.
(R) and slicks (S). Also due to the front wheel being more exposed, the
The slightly higher base pressure can be seen in Figure 20 accompanied
moment increase from tyre features is more pronounced on the front
with an increased pressure on the muffler.
wheel than the rear wheel. The rain grooves showed almost no change
in ventilation moment on the rear wheel for both rim configurations.
The changes in ventilation moments for the different tyre configurations
Ventilation moment were very consistent independent of the rim design.

Another interesting factor that changes with the addition of tyre details
is the ventilation moment, the aerodynamic resistance to the wheel’s Conclusion
rotation. Although difficult to measure in the wind tunnel where it needs
to be isolated from other losses, like rolling resistance, this is easily This work demonstrates the ability of CFD simulations using MRFg
calculated in CFD. The ventilation moment has been output for each approach to predict tyre feature effects. A study of the effects of time
time step and the average for the front left and rear left wheels can be step size and averaging time is presented to motivate the numerical setup.
seen in Figure 21. The ventilation moments on the right wheels were Overall, the drag change for tyre features was well predicted in the open
similar to the left wheels, hence the detailed results are only presented rim case. However, the closed rim case proved to be more challenging
for one side of the car. with the effects of lateral grooves slightly outside of uncertainty margins.

As expected, the ventilation moment on the open rim configurations The following conclusions can be made:
is significantly higher than the closed rim, which matches well with
earlier studies on the subject [25, 26]. It could also be seen that the • An averaging interval of 2 seconds with a time step of 2x10-4
ventilation moments for the front wheel, Figure 21a, are consistently seconds has proven to be sufficient to produce accurate results in
higher than the rear wheel, Figure 21b. This can be explained by the terms of drag and lift prediction.
fact that the front wheel is more exposed to the on coming flow. When
the rim is closed and the tyres are slicks, the ventilation drag is at its • The rain grooves effect is generally well predicted in simulations
lowest at 0.53 N·m, front, and 0.50 N·m, rear. However when the rim after comparison to wind tunnel results. The reduction in drag
is opened, the spokes interact more with the flow and the ventilation they introduce could be seen in CFD around the rear wheels and
moments increase by 0.22 N·m in the front, and 0.2 N·m in the rear. on base pressure.

8
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One Wind Tunnel Tyre”, SAE International Journal of Passenger
complemented by further flow field analysis. This requires performing
Cars - Mechanical Systems 5(2): 1026–1041, Apr. 2012, issn:
pressure and velocity measurements in planes in the vicinity of the
1946-4002, doi: 10.4271/2012-01-1166.
wheels. Ideally, the wind tunnel geometry could also be included in the
CFD simulations in order to reproduce the effects of the five-belt moving [11] Wickern, G., Zwicker, K., and Pfadenhauer, M., “Rotating Wheels
ground system, struts, and tunnel blockage effect on the flow field. This - Their Impact on Wind Tunnel Test Techniques and on Vehicle
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from the boundary layer control system. International, Feb. 1997), doi: 10.4271/970133.
[12] Wäschle, A., “The Influence of Rotating Wheels on Vehicle
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Investigations of these effects on different vehicle shapes will be
[13] Landström, C., Löfdahl, L., Josefsson, L., and Walker, T., “An
performed, in order to check whether the observations reported in
experimental investigation of wheel design parameters with
this work, regarding tyre pattern effects, are vehicle dependent.
respect to aerodynamic drag”, 8th FKFS Conference-Progress
in Vehicle Aerodynamics and Thermal Management, (Stuttgart,
2011).

9
[14] Koitrand, S., Gaylard, A., and Fiet, G. O., “An Investigation Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden
of Wheel Aerodynamic Effects for a Saloon Car”, Progress in Tel. +46 (0)70-389 11 76
Vehicle Aerodynamics and Thermal Management: Proceedings [email protected]
of the 10th FKFS-Conference, Reihe Technik, (2015), isbn:
9783816933229. Mr. Teddy Hobeika
[15] Haag, L., Blacha, T., and Indinger, T., “Experimental Investigation Road Vehicle Aerodynamics Group
on the Aerodynamics of Isolated Rotating Wheels and Evaluation Division of Vehicle Engineering and Autonomous Systems
of Wheel Rotation Models Using Unsteady CFD”, International Department of Mechanics and Maritime Sciences
Journal of Automotive Engineering 8(1): 7–14, 2017, doi: Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden
10.20485/jsaeijae.8.1_7. Tel. +46 (0)70-073 89 96
[email protected]
[16] Hobeika, T., Sebben, S., and Landstrom, C., “Investigation of the
Influence of Tyre Geometry on the Aerodynamics of Passenger
Cars”, SAE Int. J. Passeng. Cars - Mech. Syst. 6: 316–325, 2013, Acknowledgements
issn: 1946-4002, doi: 10.4271/2013-01-0955.
The simulations were performed on resources provided by the Swedish
[17] Landstrom, C., Josefsson, L., Walker, T., and Lofdahl, L.,
National Infrastructure for Computing (SNIC) at PDC Center for High
“Aerodynamic Effects of Different Tire Models on a Sedan
Performance Computing (PDC-HPC).
Type Passenger Car”, SAE Int. J. Passeng. Cars - Mech. Syst. 5:
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The authors would also like to thank Volvo Cars for providing access to
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Funding
[19] Hobeika, T., Sebben, S., and Lofdahl, L., “Study of Different This work is funded by FFI (Fordonsstrategisk Forskning och Innovation,
Tyre Simulation Methods and Effects on Passenger Car Strategic Vehicle Research and Innovation) through Energimyndigheten
Aerodynamics”, International Vehicle Aerodynamics Conference (Swedish Energy Agency) project number 37195-1.
2014, (Holywell Park, Loughborough, UK, 2014): 187–195, isbn:
978-0-08-100199-8.
Nomenclature
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on the Flow Around a Rotating, Isolated Wheel with Detailed
Symbol Definition
Tread Pattern”, SAE Int. J. Passeng. Cars - Mech. Syst. 8: 261–274,
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WT Wind tunnel
[21] Lew, C., Gopalaswamy, N., Shock, R., Duncan, B., and Hoch, J.,
IDDES Improved Delayed Detached Eddy Simulation
“Aerodynamic Simulation of a Standalone Rotating Treaded Tire”,
Cd Drag Coefficient
WCX17: SAE World Congress Experience, (SAE International,
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MRFg Moving Reference Frame - grooves
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OR Open Rim
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10.1016/j.ijheatfluidflow.2008.07.001.
[25] Bonitz, S., “An investigation into the aerodynamic ventilation
drag incurred by wheel rotation on a passenger car, and its
influence on the total road load of the car.”, Master’s Thesis,
Berlin, Germany: TU Berlin, 2012.
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on Total Road Load”, SAE World Congress & Exhibition, (SAE
International, Apr. 2007), doi: 10.4271/2007-01-1047.

Contact Information
Assoc. Prof. Simone Sebben
Road Vehicle Aerodynamics Group
Division of Vehicle Engineering and Autonomous Systems
Department of Mechanics and Maritime Sciences

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