Comparing the Effects of Multiple Siping Patterns on the Initial Acceleration of Tires in Winter Conditions
The purpose of this experiment was to determine whether changing the pattern of siping incisions would significantly affect the traction a tire has in winter conditions. To accomplish this, an RC car was used with 3 different sets of siping patterns as well as a standard set. The RC car was then driven in linear path that was covered in plastic wrap to mimic the smooth characteristics and coefficient of friction ice has. A motion detector was placed directly behind the RC car and measured the initial acceleration over two meters. These acceleration values were used in the raw statistics of the descriptive analysis to determine any trends or significance. Two hundred trials were conducted.
The original hypothesis stating that the pattern perpendicular to the tires movement was rejected. Each siping pattern did increase the initial acceleration of the tires in comparison to the standard set. However, the diagonal pattern appeared to have the greatest increase in initial acceleration of the RC car. Both the horizontal and v- shaped incisions had roughly the same accelerations as shown in the boxplots. These results may have occurred because the diagonal sipes were noticeably larger than the other incisions which allowed for the tire to have a greater surface area in contact with the ground. This experiment was designed to mimic real world conditions, but more research needs to be conducted to accurately represent a standard tire on pavement.
Research Conducted By:
Arnes Besic
Cousino High School
Nathan Dobranski
Warren Mott High School
Warren Consolidated Schools