To measure the viscoelastic characteristics of a rubber member for use in a tire efficiently and with high precision.

A tire model which reproduces a tire using a finite number of elements is provided with an elastic constant of the rubber member, and is brought into contact with a road surface model with a preset load condition. The tire circumferential distribution of strain acting on the area of the rubber member of the tire model brought into contact with the road surface model is then extracted. From the tire circumferential strain distribution, the frequency distribution of the strain when the tire has made one revolution is determined for each strain component. A maximum strain amplitude for use in the measurement of viscoelastic characteristics is determined from the strain frequency distribution. The viscoelasticity test apparatus, using the determined maximum strain amplitude, performs a viscoelasticity test on a sample of the rubber member for each frequency and measures the viscoelastic characteristics of the rubber member for each frequency.

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