’Cos we are living in a digital world

December 14, 2023

New developments from Continental have a late 1980s earworm stuck in JACO DE KLERK’s head…

The song Material Girl, first recorded by Madonna in 1984 on her second studio album Like a Virgin, has the Queen of Pop singing through each chorus: “’Cos we are living in a material world, and I am a material girl…”

Almost four decades later, Continental has turned this aesthetic upside down by embracing the digital domain through its new driving simulator for tyres. The company will use the simulator from now on for new and further tyre developments, especially in the original equipment business.

After an intensive 12 months of testing, the company has released its driver-in-the-loop (DIL) simulator, which will shorten development times. “Virtual development methods enable us to offer solutions even more efficiently and more precisely tailored to the needs and requirements of our customers,” explains Bernd Korte, head of passenger tyredevelopment for Continental’s original equipment business.

This is how the virtual tests work: the simulator calculates the exact parameters for the driving dynamics of the tyresand the corresponding test vehicle. All that Continental has to do is load the relevant tyre model for the customer’s specific vehicle model into the simulator, which contains precise information on the tyre’s design, tread, and rubber compound. The test driver thus drives a dedicated tyre model for a specific vehicle model variant, as was previously the case on the physical test track.

“With our driving simulator, we evaluate and optimise a tyre before we physically build it for the first time,” explains Julian Kroeber, who is responsible for the tyre simulator at Continental. “This allows us to further optimise our development process. It also saves a lot of time for our customers.”

The simulator can evaluate tyres for all vehicle and drive variants for electric, hybrid, and combustion-engine passenger cars and commercial vehicles. The crucial advantage is that the tyre parameters can be adjusted digitally at any time. This means that test drives can be repeated at short intervals and subjective drive impressions can be compared directly with each other.

Thanks to DIL’s extensive 4x5m motion platform that features a maximum acceleration of 12m/s, the test drivers experience all six degrees of freedom for vehicle dynamics – just like in a real vehicle on a physical test track. These include the longitudinal and lateral movements, the stroke movement, and the yaw, pitch, and roll of a vehicle. Professional test drivers are trained to incorporate these subjective driving impressions into the development process. This experience is essential for achieving the exact tyre set-up required by the vehicle manufacturers for a particular vehicle model.

New materials that are being used in tyres for the first time can also be tested extensively in the new simulator. This is particularly important, because every time an approved material in a tyre is replaced by a new one, the new material’s properties and interactions with other materials must be thoroughly investigated. Continental thus ensures that its tyres will meet the highest performance criteria for safety-related properties, as well as other important aspects such as rolling resistance and noise development.

While the Material Girl, in her material world, only bats an eye to suitors who are financially well off, Continental’s DIL has more honourable intentions… every test cycle completed in the driving simulator instead of on real roads means fewer test tyres that need to be produced. “Virtual test kilometres play a major part in conserving valuable resources,” emphasises Korte. “With our new driving simulator, we can shorten development times and optimise the use of resources in production and logistics.” The investment in this new testing technology thus adds to Continental’s extensive sustainability activities.

Well done, Continental, for moving tyre testing to the digital domain for greater savings and sustainability. Now, I just need to get this earworm out of my head…