Modeling of a tire mounted energy harvester using an inertial and analytical tire deformation model

Abstract

In this work, an analytical tire deformation model is created, which can be parameterized using simple measurements. The model consists of three equations which are solved to provide a shape function for the tire.This model can be used to provide excitation input for energy harvesters embedded inside the tire for example in FEM simulations. Additionally the model can be used in differential equation based simulations for quick parameterized simulations. With this model it is possible to study the effect of tyre inflation state to the energy harvesting performance of the system.Two different simulation cases are presented in this work. First is a vibration energy harvester simulation using the model with an inertial energy harvester. The second case illustrates an energy harvester using the deformation of the tire as the excitation for the energy harvester as opposed to inertial type harvester.