Modeling Tire Blow-Out in Roadside Hardware Simulations Using LS-DYNA

Often when vehicles interact with roadside hardware like guardrails, bridge rails and curbs, the interaction between the roadside hardware and the tire causes the tire to lose its air seal and “blow-out”. Once the seal between the rim and rubber tire is lost, the tire deflates. The behavior of the deflated tire is much different than the behavior of an inflated tire such that when this behavior is observed in real world crashes or in full-scale crash tests, the vehicle kinematics are strongly coupled to the behavior of the deflated tire. Accounting for this behavior in LS-DYNA models is crucial in many types of roadside hardware simulations since the forces generated by the deflated tire often introduce instability into the vehicle that can cause rollover or spinout. This paper will present a method for accounting for tire deflation during LS-DYNA simulations and will present examples of the use of this type of improved model.