The wear rate of a tread block sliding on a road affects the grip available at the contact patch. Crack generation requires energy and the process of crack propagation dissipates heat into the rubber tread block. Crack opening occurs due to the shear stresses generated by friction at the contact patch. This energy generates the temperature at the contact patch, which affects the grip. On a wet road, wear particle generation is motivated by frictional shear stresses and the fluid pressure at the contact patch which forces cracks open, resulting in different wear rates. This affects the heat available for temperature generation at the contact patch. Additionally, convection occurs due to fluid flow in non-contact areas at the interface, thus transferring heat away from the tread block. This complex interaction between wear rate and temperature on the grip generated by a rubber block sliding on a wet and dry rough road has not been studied. This work aims to quantify this complex phenomenon using a physics-based approach. The wear rate for a rubber block sliding on a wet road will be determined using the number of cracks generated at each length-scale at a given shear stress, fluid pressure combination at the contact patch. The net energy available for temperature generation will be quantified as the difference between energy generated due to crack propagation and fracture energy at every length scale. This energy will then be used to calculate the temperature generated and its effect on grip using a previously developed novel wet thermal-grip model at CenTiRe.

• Wear rate of a tread block sliding on a wet rough road.
• The effect of wear on the temperature generated at the tread block-road interface
• The impact of wear and temperature on the grip available at the tread block-road interface
• Effect of different sliding speeds on the wear rate and the grip generated.