Influence of tire sizes over automobile body spectrum loads and fatigue damage accumulation

Design specifications in automobile project and construction lead, in recent models, to the preference of using increasingly larger and slender tires. The tire and wheel set, however, is instrumental in determining the loads which act in the entire structure, in particular, in the vehicle body. The influence of different tire sizes and profiles over the load spectra obtained in a rough road test track was investigated by instrumenting fourteen points in the body of a typical passenger's car. It is shown that increased tire sizes lead to more severe loads, which are reflected in higher damage, as estimated by the use of the linear rule.