Darmstadt (Germany), January 16th, 2020 – VI-grade today announced that American multinational tire manufacturing company Goodyear will enhance its product development capabilities with the purchase of new VI-grade driving simulators including a dynamic model, a first for tire manufacturers. In detail, Goodyear has selected a COMPACT Simulator, that has already been delivered to the Goodyear site in Luxembourg, and a dynamic driving simulator DiM250 (Driver-in-Motion) that will be installed in Akron, Ohio, USA in the coming months. The driving simulators will be used for virtual development and tuning of dynamic performances of tires aided by the ability to simulate a range of driving conditions.
Tire companies are very much affected by the automotive industry trend towards virtualization of the development cycle. They are reacting to this trend by adopting new ways of developing tires, enabling OEMs to test new tires more effectively. Driving Simulators are the perfect solution for companies like Goodyear, because they allow to develop, test and validate tire models early in the development cycle, enabling to identify the best performing tires before building the first prototype. Driving Simulators give the possibility to cut development costs and to keep the pace with the automotive development process, providing tire models at the right time when requested by OEMs. By selecting VI-grade DiM250 and COMPACT Simulators, Goodyear gains the possibility of using the same tools used by most of its customers worldwide.
“This level of simulation sophistication will allow Goodyear to drive breakthroughs in future tire creation leading to an enhanced customer and driver experience,” said Chris Helsel, Goodyear’s senior vice president and chief technology officer. “I’m proud to say that Goodyear is leading the industry with VI-grade and our simulation solutions and we look forward to sharing that benefit with our customers.”
“We are delighted to report on the adoption of our driving simulators at Goodyear” said Guido Bairati, VP Global Sales and Marketing, VI-grade. “Together with the driving simulators, Goodyear also ordered a dedicated training program aimed to coaching drivers and engineers in using our solutions prior to the delivery of the DiM250 simulator, in order to accelerate as much as possible the learning curve, ultimately increasing the ROI. As a part of this training program, a DESKTOP simulator will also be provided to Goodyear.”
To reproduce vehicle movements and accelerations, the DiM solution takes a different path to driving simulation and is based on a patented revolutionary design with nine actuators. The resulting configuration with its 9 degrees of freedom enables to go beyond the basic six-actuator design of a simple hexapod or similar, thus providing a larger workspace while maintaining a high stiffness. This leads to a system suitable for low as well as high frequencies, both of which occur in automotive chassis design. For this reason, DiM enables to investigate vehicle dynamics as well as ride and comfort on the same driving simulator.
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