rolling resistance and friction coefficient?
 

Somebody posted a method for estimating the rolling resistance of a tire in another thread but it didn't seem very user friendly. Does anyone know if there is a connection between a tire's rolling resistance and its friction coefficient?

Yes, and I've talked about it in detail here:

Barry's Tire Tech

Short version: There is technology triangle between Rolling Resistance, Traction, and Treadwear. In order to improve one, you have to sacrifice one of the other (or both).

thanks, at first glance, it looks like I can learn a few things from that link. However, since the friction coefficient of a tire is fairly easy to determine (by doing a drag test for example) is there any way to take that number and translate it into rolling resistance?

if you are looking at lrr tires, the rr is avialible on many tires,on the manufactures websites and other places.

...from the number crunching I did, that "flat" spot (contact patch) area on the bottom of the tire roughly equates to a 3% reduction in the mathematical radius of the tire.

...I got ~97% values for the 16" diameter Goodyear, Firestone/Bridgestone and Michelin tires that I analyzed.

...how'd I do it? Just backsolved from their posted tire-revolutions-per-mile against their published static (unloaded) tire diameters.

No You have 3 variables and only one of them would be known.