ON NUMERICAL SIMULATION TECHNIQUES OF TIRE CURING PROCESS

Tire curing heat transfer is treated as an axisymmetric heat transfer problem. By using Galerkin's method, the finite element formulation of the axisymmetric heat transfer problem is carried out for composite materials from the heat transfer differential equations expressed by heat fluid density. The rubber curing dynamics model and real tire curing temperature history are further combined with the finite element formulation to develop a finite element analysis software for numerical simulation of the tire curing process. Finite element analysis of a tire curing process shows that numerical simulation results given by the software are correct in tendency.