This Q&A-style interview reveals some interesting details about the current state of the art in tyre modelling and simulation. Below are some of the main of the discussion.
How have you worked with tyre manufacturers to develop their products using your technologies?
We’ve worked closely with manufacturers such as Michelin, NEXEN and Continental to support the development of their next-generation tyres. For example, NEXEN acquired one of our Delta S3 simulators, becoming the first South Korean tyre company to use such advanced simulation technology in this sector. This enables working more efficiently with vehicle manufacturers, since tyre submissions can be evaluated in a laboratory environment before physical prototype tyres are built, thereby significantly reducing development times and costs. Continental uses their Ansible Motion Delta S3 simulator to gather accurate driver feedback in a lab setting, enabling tyre performance assessments that closely reflect real-world conditions without needing to rely entirely on physical track testing, noting significant efficiency gains. Julian Kroeber, simulator project manager at Continental says that “while a physical series of two development loops can take up to 3 months, with virtual tools and the simulator that time can be reduced to 90 minutes.”
Now that virtual testing with driving simulators is a key part of modern-day tyre development, what benefits does it bring?
Virtual test driving via DIL simulation offers many big advantages in tyre development. It dramatically reduces the time required to bring new products to market by allowing engineers to ‘be engineers’ and assess numerous design variations in a creative, controlled environment. Simulation also reduces the environmental impact associated with producing and disposing of prototype tyres – an increasingly important consideration for manufacturers as they strive to become more sustainable.
The ability to simulate different road surfaces, weather conditions and human driving behaviours in the lab makes it much easier to identify the best performing designs without needing to conduct dozens of physical test cycles.
DIL simulator laboratories are also highly repeatable and reconfigurable. This means that true A-to-B testing can occur quickly and confidently. A large test matrix can be explored in a very short time, without the usual downtime associated with changing physical parts. It’s all done with keystrokes instead of wrenches. Engineers appreciate this, of course – but so do test drivers and evaluators, since they do not need to wait to try variants, and their understanding of changes can be immediate.
What specific elements of a tyre are you able to model? Such as thermal effects, for example.
We’re able to model a wide range of tyre elements, depending on the application. At the most fundamental level, the Magic Formula (MF-Tyre) model is used to simulate control force generation based on empirical curve fitting - ideal for vehicle handling simulations up to around 8 Hz. For more advanced needs, such as simulating transient manoeuvres or limit handling, thermo-mechanical or “thermal” models can be used. These go beyond simple temperature predictions and calculate forces based on the thermal and mechanical excitation within the contact patch, often requiring high-fidelity road surface data. For high-frequency applications, such as ride comfort or power steering tuning, models like MF-Swift or real-time variants of MF-Tyre incorporate carcass dynamics and short-wavelength road inputs, enabling simulation bandwidths up to 90 Hz. Basically, we can model everything from basic handling forces to temperature effects and high-frequency structural dynamics, depending on the DIL experiment requirements.
Do tyre engineers have more freedom in the virtual world as opposed to real-world testing?
Absolutely. So much freedom that it requires setting practical experimentation boundaries to stay focused. Tyre engineers have significantly more freedom when working in a virtual environment because changes to tyre designs or vehicle configurations can be made with a few keystrokes rather than costly hardware alterations. It’s much easier to explore new ideas and test unconventional solutions. This freedom, when properly planned and managed, encourages creativity and can lead to important innovations that might not be feasible to trial using traditional methods with the usual time constraints. The risk-free nature of simulation also means engineers can push up to and beyond practical limits without putting people or physical resources at risk.
Make sure to read the full article on the Tyre Trade News website to see the full interview with all the Questions and Answers.