TYRE DEFLECTION MONITORING

• US 20170326927A1
• Filed: 05/10/2017
• Published: 11/16/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 05/11/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Airbus Operations Limited (Airbus SE)
• Original Assignee: Airbus Operations Limited (Airbus SE)
• Inventors: BILL, Andrew, CLARKE, David Joel
• Granted Patent: US 10,336,143 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: B60C 23/0408 transmitting the signals by non-mechanical means from the wheel or tyre to a vehicle body mounted receiver
• CPC Class Codes: B60C 23/0486 comprising additional sensors in the wheel or tyre mounted monitoring device, e.g. movement sensors, microphones or earth magnetic field sensors
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 9/00 Arrangements in telecontrol or telemetry systems for selectively calling a substation from a main station, in which substation desired apparatus is selected for applying a control signal thereto or for obtaining measured values therefrom

Abstract

An apparatus for monitoring deflection of a tyre including a non-transitory memory, storing tyre behavior information which relates tyre deflection to tyre load and tyre pressure; and a controller in communication with the memory. The controller is configured to: receive load information which relates to a load on the tyre; receive pressure information which relates to a pressure of the tyre; and determine a deflection of the tyre based on the received load information, the received pressure information, and the stored tyre behavior information.

Claims

1. An apparatus for monitoring deflection of a tire, the apparatus comprising:

a non-transitory memory, storing tire behavior information which relates tire deflection to tire load and tire pressure; and

a controller in communication with the memory, the controller being configured to;

receive load information which relates to a load on the tire;

receive pressure information which relates to a pressure of the tire; and

determine a deflection of the tire based on the received load information, the received pressure information, and the stored tire behavior information.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the load information comprises a measurement of a load on an axle of a wheel on which the tire is installed.

3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein a further wheel is additionally mounted on the axle, and wherein the controller is further configured to receive pressure information for a further tire installed on the further wheel, and to calculate a load on the tire based on the axle load measurement, the tire pressure information, and the further tire pressure information.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the controller is further configured to determine whether the tire should be replaced, based on the determined deflection.

5. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the controller is configured to determine whether the tire should be replaced by determining whether the determined deflection meets a predefined deflection criterion.

6. The apparatus of claim 5, wherein the predefined deflection criterion comprises a deflection threshold, such that a determined deflection greater than the threshold meets the criterion and a determined deflection less than the threshold does not meet the criterion.

7. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the controller is further configured to receive rotation information relating to rotation of a wheel on which the tire is installed, and is configured to determine whether the tire should be replaced additionally based on the received rotation information.

8. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the controller is configured to determine whether the tire should be replaced by determining whether the received rotation information meets a predefined rotation criterion.

9. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the predefined rotation criterion is defined such that the received rotation information meets the rotation criterion if it indicates that the tire has rotated during a selected time period, and does not meet the rotation criterion if it indicates that the tire has not rotated during the selected time period.

10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the selected time period is a time period during which the determined deflection meets the predefined deflection criterion.

11. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the controller is configured to determine that the tire should be replaced if:

the determined deflection exceeds a first threshold;

or

the determined deflection exceeds a second threshold lower than the first threshold, and the received rotation information indicates that the tire has rotated during a time period for which the determined deflection exceeds the second threshold;

and is configured to determine that the tire should not be replaced if;

the determined deflection is between the second threshold and the first threshold, and the received rotation information indicates that the tire has not rotated during a time period for which the determined deflection exceeds the second threshold.

12. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the controller is configured to determine whether a further tire should be replaced, based on the determination of whether the tire should be replaced, wherein the further tire is installed on a wheel mounted on the same axle as the wheel on which the tire is installed

13. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the tire behavior information comprises one or more of:

information relating to characteristic deflection behavior of the tire;

a dataset of measurements of the deflection of the tire at various different tire pressures and/or tire loads;

a set of tire load versus tire deflection curves for various different tire pressures;

a mathematical model of the tire;

a look-up table;

a mathematical relationship relating tire deflection, tire pressure and tire load.

14. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the controller is further configured to output a signal based on the determined deflection.

15. An aircraft comprising:

an apparatus according to claim 1;

a load sensor configured to measure the load on an axle of a wheel on which a tire is installed and to transmit an axle load measurement to the apparatus; and

a pressure sensor configured to measure the pressure of the tire and to transmit a tire pressure measurement to the apparatus.

16. The aircraft of claim 15, further comprising a further pressure sensor configured to measure the pressure of a further tire and to transmit a further tire pressure measurement to the apparatus, wherein the further tire is installed on a wheel mounted on the same axle as the wheel on which the tire is installed.

17. The aircraft of claim 15, further comprising a rotation sensor configured to detect rotation of a wheel on which the tire is installed and to transmit rotation information to the apparatus.

18. A method to monitor deflection of a tire comprising:

retrieving from a non-transitory memory tire behavior information which relates tire deflection to tire load and tire pressure;

receiving current load information indicative of a load applied to the tire;

receiving automatically current pressure information indicative of an air pressure in the tire;

calculating a deflection of the tire based on the received current load information, the received current pressure information, and the retrieved tire behavior information, and

generating a notice to service the tire if the deflection of the tire exceeds a certain deflection threshold.

19. The method of claim 18 wherein the steps of the method are performed automatically by a controller.