Tire–Soil Pressure Distribution Field Validation Checklist

Tire–soil interaction is foundational to off-road vehicle performance, affecting traction, sinkage, rolling resistance, and terrain disturbance. Accurate modeling of the contact pressure distribution—i.e., the magnitude and spatial variation of normal stress across the tire–soil interface—is essential for predictive terramechanics simulations and digital twin development. However, such models (e.g., finite element, discrete element, or empirical–semiempirical formulations) are highly sensitive to soil constitutive parameters, tire structural properties, inflation pressure, and boundary conditions; thus, rigorous field validation is non-negotiable. The validation checklist operationalizes best practices from ISO/IEC 17025, ASABE standards (e.g., ASABE EP485.3), and the NASA Systems Engineering Handbook by mandating traceable instrumentation calibration, spatiotemporal resolution matching between model output and measurement, and statistical metrics (e.g., RMSE, R², spatial correlation coefficient) to assess agreement beyond pointwise averages. Crucially, it requires contextual evaluation: pressure field features such as peak location, pressure gradient asymmetry, and zero-pressure boundaries must be physically consistent with observed sinkage, shear deformation, and lateral bulging—thereby distinguishing numerically converged but physically implausible solutions from truly validated models.