Patent ID: 7908128

Claim:
A method for modeling a tire model used for a computer simulation of a pneumatic tire having a toroidal main body and a circumferentially extending tread pattern formed thereon, comprising: a step for setting a three-dimensional main body model by dividing the main body by N (N is an integer not less than 2) equally in a circumferential direction of the tire using a finite number of elements; a step for setting a three-dimensional pattern model by dividing the tread pattern by M (M is an integer greater than N) equally in the circumferential direction of the tire using a finite number of elements; a step for coupling the pattern model with the main body model such that their tire rotation axes are aligned to each other to make a three-dimensional tire model; and a correcting step for moving nodal points existing on a radially outer surface of the pattern model such that a thickness of the pattern model measured from a radially outer surface of the main body model in a normal direction becomes constant, wherein the correcting step includes: selecting one of the nodal points on the radially outer surface of the pattern model; calculating a radius of the selected nodal points from a tire rotation axis; obtaining, when an element of the body model existing radially inside of the nodal point is located at n-th position from an arbitrarily determined reference position, an angle θ of the circumferential direction of the tire from the nodal point to a boundary plane between an element of the body model located at n−1-th position from the reference position and the n-th element of the main body model, calculating a new radius of the nodal point to make a thickness of the pattern model constant using the angle θ, and moving the nodal point to coordinates having the new radius.