Industry-Leading Tire Expertise with State-Of-The-Art Testing Capabilities
Tire development is moving faster than ever. Whether you're innovating with new tread compound materials, characterizing performance for advanced modeling, evaluating on-vehicle performance, or simply testing to regulatory or labeling requirements, Smithers experts can help. Our team of chemists, material scientists, engineers, and technicians have years of industry experience to guide you through the testing needed to optimize tire performance. Our global laboratories and proving grounds are well positioned to support tire development from raw materials to the road.Material Analysis Laboratories
The tire begins with compound ingredients, reinforcements, and careful construction design. Our material analysis laboratories are well equipped to support the development of new compound formulations and understand how various ingredients can affect overall tire performance. Our services include:- Chemical characterization of raw materials
- Reverse engineering
- Physical properties testing
- Small-batch compounding & mixing studies
- Complex sample preparation and tire disection
Whole Tire Durability and Performance Testing
Whether you require an independent, third-party laboratory to test to international regulatory standards for endurance, durability, and rolling resistance, or need to understand how to improve high-speed uniformity performance, our team can help. With tire and wheel testing laboratories in the United States and China, we can provide global tire manufacturers and automotive OEMs with the testing technology to support:- Country-specific tire regulatory testing
- Custom durability and aging studies
- Standard-based or custom rolling resistance studies with multiple variables
- Tire footprint studies
- Force and moment testing
- Low and High-speed uniformity testing
- And more
Characterization for Tire Modeling
Virtual development is evolving quickly. You need the tools and data to support the next high-fidelity models for tire and vehicle development. Our experts work closely with your development team to understand your modeling goals so that the testing and data outputs can provide the fidelity you need to conduct your simulations or virtual testing. Using Force and Moment data along with high-speed cleat testing, footprint data, and other variables, we can support a variety of tire models such as Pacejka, MF-Tyre™, MF-Swift™, FTire™, Adams Tire, and others.Proving Ground Testing
Once it’s made its way through the labs, your tire is ready to hit the road. Operating both a winter and year-round proving grounds, Smithers can support a wide range of standard and custom on-vehicle testing programs. Whether you’d like to rent space and track time for your teams to conduct testing or you’d like Smithers experts to conduct testing on your behalf, we can support testing such as:- Dry and wet grip
- Dry and wet braking
- Noise testing
- Subjective handling
- Buffed / worn tire performance testing
- Winter traction testing to various standards
- Snow and ice handling evaluations
Tires Tested
We support a wide range of tires and industry testing protocols across multiple vehicle types. These include:- Passenger and light truck (PCR)
- Truck and bus (TBR)
- Agricultural equipment
- Military and defense vehicles
- OTR
- Specialty tires such as motorcycles, forklifts, and others
- Tire valves
Tire Testing
- 6PPD Alternative Development
- Accelerated Tire Aging
- Custom Product Displays
- Durability and Endurance Testing
- Electric Vehicle (EV) Tires
- Fleet Fuel Efficiency Analysis
- Force and Moment Testing
- Government Regulatory Tire Testing
- High-Speed Uniformity Testing
- Inflation Pressure Loss Rate (IPLR)
- Laboratory Tire Analysis
- OEM Design Validation
- OTR Tire Testing
- PRAT and RCF
- Retreaded Truck Tire Testing
- Rolling Resistance Testing
- Simulated On-Vehicle Accelerated Tire Testing
- Snow and Ice Traction
- Stiffness/Spring Rate Measurement
- Subjective Ride and Handling
- Tire Benchmarking
- Tire Buffing
- Tire Durability Index Report
- Tire Footprint Testing
- Tire Impact Testing
- Tire Labeling Testing
- Tire Modeling and Characterization
- Tire Proving Grounds
- Tire Quality Control Program
- Tire Shearography
- Vertical Load Testing
- Virtual Tire Lab
