Study on Penetration Damage Characteristics of Honeycomb Non-pneumatic Safety Tiree

To improve the mobility and reliability of special-purpose vehicles that are operated in extreme conditions and to minimize the influence of tire failure on the vehicle’s mobility, this paper investigates how the mechanical properties of honeycomb non-pneumatic tires are affected after high-speed impacts from external projectiles. A prototype of a network non-pneumatic honeycomb tire was initially developed, which was made of polyurethane material. The five parameter model of the Mooney-Rivlin model was selected as its constitutive relation and the experimental study was performed to validate three-dimensional stiffness simulation model for the tire. Secondly, a LS-DYNA-based finite element model was developed to describe the dynamic behaviors of the tire under an external impact at various locations (e.g. tread, single spoke plate and joints), and to investigate the influence of local damage and spoke plate fracture on the stiffness of the tire. The results indicate that the tire has better performance of resisting the impacts at small and medium levels, with the decrease of radial stiffness of the tire less than 4% after experiencing the ultrahigh load; after the spokes plate is broken, the radial stiffness of tire drops significantly by comparing with the intact tire, that is 24.17%, which has a great effect on the support performance of the tire. The findings of this work offer theoretical support and design guidelines for the structural optimization and properties improvement of NPTS.