Patent Document ID: 9245070
Application ID: 14391776
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. A method for modeling a distribution of a tire footprint boundary, comprising: inputting into a finite element analysis system a finite element model of a tire rolling against a road surface described by discrete road surface coordinates; performing a finite element analysis simulation of the model of the tire rolling against the road surface for a first plurality of time increments; generating a plurality of tire footprint boundary data, each of the tire footprint boundary data having road surface coordinates on which a footprint boundary overlaps corresponding to a unique one of a second plurality of time increments of the finite element analysis, wherein the second plurality of time increments is a subset of the first plurality of time increments; determining for each of a plurality of the discrete road surface coordinates a number of the second plurality of time increments during which the tire footprint boundary overlaps each of the plurality of the discrete road surface coordinates; generating a plot of the tire footprint boundary at points on the discrete road surface coordinates based on the number of the second plurality of time increments during which the footprint boundary overlaps each of the plurality of the discrete road surface coordinates; and adjusting the finite element model of the tire based on the generated plot.