Measurement of the lateral characteristics and identification of the Magic Formula parameters of city and cargo bicycle tyres

Abstract

The paper presents measurements of the lateral force and self-aligning torque from cargo and city bicycle tyres. Based on the experimental data, we have determined the parameters for the Magic Formula model, for lateral force and self-aligning torque. We performed tests with VeTyT, an indoor test rig specific for bicycle tyres, under different vertical loads (ranging from 343 N to 526 N), camber angles (−5, 0, 5) deg and inflation pressure (from 300 kPa to 500 kPa). For each condition, we evaluated the cornering stiffness and found that it generally decreases with the increase in inflation pressure for the tour/city bicycle tyres. However, the cargo tyre tested showed an opposite trend, with an increase in the cornering stiffness as the inflation pressure increased from 300 kPa to 400 kPa.