lNational Tire Research Center (NTRC)
CUSTOMER CASE STUDYTransforming Tire Design
High-powered MTS tire testing system enables manufacturers to push newdesigns beyond their limits
C US T OM E R CH A LLEN G E

The National Tire Research Center (NTRC) in Alton, Virginia, offers a full spectrumof tire testing capabilities designed to support the research and development efforts ofvehicle and tire manufacturers around the world. According to the facility’s operations
director, Jonathan Darab, the NTRC offers test equipment and in-house expertisemanufacturers simply can’t find anywhere else. As such, he expects the facility to havea tremendous impact on the future of tire testing and virtual vehicle development.
“The closest thing to compare it to is when we went from bias to radial,” Darab said.
“It was just a huge leap, in terms of the technology used to produce the tires and theperformance of the tires themselves. That’s how I see our capabilities.”

Left to right: Ryan Quinn, Frank Della Pia,
Jonathan Darab, Kevin Kefauver“Working with MTS, I definitely had the feeling
we were all on the same team. We were all trying
to execute the science and do it right. It’s been agreat experience.”— Frank Della Pia
Executive Director
National Tire Research Center &To reach this level, the NTRC had to find test equipment that did not yet exist. Specifically,
the facility needed a system that could replicate a wider variety of operating conditions
and driving events, including the double lane change in which a driver swerves to avoid acrash and then overcorrects in the opposite direction. This maneuver, which is a frequentcause of rollovers, is what must be replicated to pass the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety
Standard (FMVSS) No. 126 test. This standard requires all cars and trucks weighing lessthan 10,000 pounds to have an electronic stability control system by 2013.
“Right now, there is not a tire testing system that can accurately replicate the 126 maneuverin the lab,” Darab said. “To make sure new designs pass the test, vehicle OEMs and tire
manufacturers must extrapolate data based on other similar events. So, instead of having
95 percent confidence a new model will pass, they are more like 80 percent confident.”

Southern Virginia Vehicle Motion Lab

M T S S OL UT IO N

The 126 maneuver creates a serious issue for OEMs, who must tune vehicles to avoid
certain frequency levels as well as augment virtual development efforts with additional,
resource-intensive physical tests. OEMs do not have a choice, however, because anyvehicle that fails the FMVSS 126 test in production incurs significant financial penalties
and hurts the brand’s public image. This is exactly why the NTRC set out to find a tire
testing system that could perform the 126 maneuver – among others.
This led the NTRC to work with MTS. For more than 30 years, MTS Flat-Trac® Tire
Test Systems have led the industry in flat surface force and moment measurement. This
legacy made MTS the natural choice. After collaborating on system requirements with
the NTRC, MTS developed the Flat-Trac LTRe, a tire testing system that offers exclusive
capabilities and supports advanced virtual development.

be certain.

CUSTOMER CASE STUDY“The specifications of the machine werechosen to replicate all the driving maneuvers
that a passenger car or light truck tire will
see in the real world, including the 126maneuver,” Darab said. “That’s why weinsisted on 90°/s slip and 38°/s camber
angles, among other things. We wanted tomake sure that 95 percent of OEM products
could be tested on this machine.”
The biggest differentiator of the Flat-Trac
LTRe is its electric permanent magnet
motor, or spindle torque drive. This
motor delivers the high power density
and ultra-high performance bandwidth
required to apply driving and braking
torque at full roadway speeds, underphysical loads up to 30,000 N in all threeforce directions. Other key features include
a specialized water bearing that keeps theroadway belt flat throughout the entire
speed and load range of the system, anda second electric motor that runs theroadway up to 200 mph (320 kph) for
replicating cornering maneuvers common
in motorsports.

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The Flat-Trac LTRe features an electric spindle torque drive that delivers the power density and ultra-high performance bandwidth
required to apply driving and braking torque at full roadway speeds, under physical loads up to 30,000 N in all three force directions.

C US T OM ER B EN EFI TS

With all of these capabilities, the Flat-Trac
LTRe enables vehicle OEMs and tire
manufacturers to test a wider range of tire
designs up to and beyond their physical limits.

executes a maneuver, the LTRe system
replicates it on a real tire. The response ofthe tire is then fed back into the model toimprove the simulation’s accuracy.

“We’re creating a whole new genre of testing,”
said Frank Della Pia, Executive Director for
the NTRC. “There will not be a peer facility
for the NTRC. When you add up all thecapabilities the NTRC has to offer, it’s going to
be a transformational leap in tire technology.”“When OEM test teams come to the NTRC,
they will be able to test a single tire insteadof instrumenting an entire vehicle,” Darab
said. “They will be able to run thousands ofsimulations in two days, instead of spending
those same two days running a single testwith a potential error rate of 20 percent.”

What is important to manufacturers is that
the Flat-Trac LTRe facilitates tire testing inconditions not previously attainable in acontrolled laboratory environment. OEMs
will not only be able to test tires in newways, but also evaluate tire interactions
with other components and subsystems
using hybrid simulation, or hardware-inthe-loop testing. In this context, the LTRe
system runs in tandem with a full-vehicle
computer model. When the virtual vehicle

So far, implementation of the LTRe systemhas gone well. Della Pia attributes this to
how well the two teams worked together as
the LTRe was being developed.
“Working with MTS, I definitely had thefeeling we were all on the same team,”
Della Pia said. “We were all trying to
execute the science and do it right. It’s beena great experience.”

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