Rolling tyre in mud
A 3D CFD simulation of a tyre rolling through wet mud, focused on the interaction between the tread pattern and the deformable mud.
- Industry
- Automotive
- Physics
- Multiphase flow - Viscoplastic rheology - Moving bodies
- Platform
- Supercomputer
Rolling tyre in mud
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Objective
Observe how the tyre tread displaces mud and shapes its surface. This case demonstrates Fugu’s ability to combine detailed moving geometries, multiphase flow and yield-stress rheology (mud).
Simulation setup
The mud is represented by a Herschel–Bulkley model, which describes a yield-stress fluid whose apparent viscosity depends on the local shear rate. The tyre’s translation and rotation are prescribed to study how the mud responds as the tread passes through it.
- Real tyre geometry imported from an STL file
- Tracking of the air–mud interface using a VOF method
- Local mesh refinement around the contact region and tread grooves
- Parallel computation on a supercomputer
Results
The simulation allows the mud displacement, surface deformation and flow around the tread grooves to be examined throughout the tyre’s passage. It provides a basis for comparing tread patterns and rolling conditions, with particular attention to how mud moves through and around the grooves.