Perhaps the most important part of tire design is how the tire interacts with the road surface. It is within this interaction area (called the tire footprint or contact patch) that tire forces and moments arise and that wear occurs. Smithers has the tools and expertise to help engineers understand and optimize the tire contact patch. These include ink measurements of footprint shape and groove/void ratio and optical contact pressure measurement..
Figure 1: Optical footprint of a truck tire
The optical footprints are used to calculate footprint shape, contact ratio, and normal contact pressure distribution. We also provide advanced data analysis and customized reports on your special request.
Figure 2: Typical calculations from the optical footprint
Figure 3: Typical analysis using a digitized ink footprint
Optical Tire Footprint Measurements
Smithers uses an optical footprint measurement system (glass plate method) that operates using the frustrated total internal reflection (sometimes referred to as FTIR) phenomenon. This method provides a high-resolution footprint map with the contact pressures at an accuracy comparable to that of piezo-resistive and capacitive footprint pressure measurement methods that normally provide much lower resolutions.Figure 1: Optical footprint of a truck tire
The optical footprints are used to calculate footprint shape, contact ratio, and normal contact pressure distribution. We also provide advanced data analysis and customized reports on your special request.
Figure 2: Typical calculations from the optical footprint
Ink Footprints
Smithers performs ink footprint measurements of small PC/LT tires as well as large OTR tires. Ink footprints are digitized by imaging/scanning and analysed to calculate length, width, gross and contact areas, and void fraction. Customized analysis is possible on special request.Figure 3: Typical analysis using a digitized ink footprint
- 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