Wear of rubber tire on pvc pipe 1

[sheafromme]

Hi,
As a project I'm making a robot that travels inside of a PVC pipe track (kind of a reverse train track). It has rubber wheels and weighs approximately 10 kg. I want to look into the long-term wear of the rubber wheels on the PVC pipe but in school we didn't learn much about wear beyond the very, very basics that you'd find in Shigley's. Could anyone point me in the right direction in terms of resources to start attacking this? There are a lot of sources online about the tires themselves wearing, and a lot about fluids wearing PVC pipe, but not about tires wearing the substrate itself. I was thinking of making a spreadsheet with some different parameters to try out instead of making a simulation because I want to learn it a bit more thoroughly.
Thank you!
-Shea

 

[moon161]

Try the automotive suspension forum here, a few people I think know tires pretty well. If you post there, flag this one for deletion.

https://www.eng-tips.com/threadminder.cfm?pid=800

 

[sheafromme]

@moon161 sounds good, will do!

 

[LittleInch]

Also add a sketch?

A tyre inside a circular pipe? Are you mad?

Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.

 

[geesaman.d]

1) Tribology (the science of wear and friction) can be wildly complex. It's often built empirically and to be honest I doubt there is any empirical data for a small tire running against PVC.
2) Knowing what I know about tires generally, there is flex in the tire as it rolls under load. The less flex, the longer it will wear. It is possible to select the tire and design the contacting surface so that the friction (and wear) are minimized. You don't want to twist the tire, for example.
3) Low-cost tires always have an age limit. Trailer tires for example have a shelf life whether they're in use or not and weaken with time, perhaps even moreso than usage.
4) If you're being challenged to predict the wear life of this tire support system, I wish you good luck. See item 1. Most things in real life cannot be accurately predicted using engineering methods. Perhaps you can run an accelerated-life experiment or pattern this after a real-world example that has well-understood life.