Understanding elastomer friction is essential for the development of tyres, but also for sealings and other components. Thus it is of great technical importance. There are many aspects to modelling frictional processes in which an elastomer is interacting with a rough surface, ranging from theoretical formulations, leading to reduced and complex models, via numerical simulation techniques to experimental investigations and validations.

The following aspects which all contribute to the modelling of elastomer friction are discussed within the next contributions in more detail: Constitutive modelling of a tyre is of great importance since a great part of the friction stems from hysteretic effects. Thus two contributions are concerned with material modelling of elastomers. The first discusses a specific constitutive model for rubber, MORPH, and its refinement by adding thermal effects like changes in dissipation and elastic behaviour with rising temperatures. The results are based on uniaxial tension tests with different amplitudes and temperatures. While this approach can be viewed in the light of a classical constitutive theory, the second approach uses micro-structure based formulations. Here the material parameters relate to physical quantities within the tube model for rubber elasticity including stiff filler clusters.