TIRE MODELING TIME IS MONEY What kind of real-world time savings can be achieved with a modern simulator program? Virtual screening enables Pirelli to save around 30% of development time before it gets to firing up a simulator. Continental puts it another way: the tire maker estimates it can eliminate 10,000 test tires and around 100,000km of test mileage every year by using a simulator. Its most recent investment is in a driver-in-the-loop simulator from Ansible Motion, installed in 2022 before being made available to OEMs and others from June 2023. Earlier in 2023, TTI had the chance to see the simulator in action at Continental Tires’ R&D facility in Hannover, Germany, and spoke to the tire maker’s simulator project manager, Julian Kroeber, who described the setup as a way to bridge the gap between real and virtual testing, particularly for getting a feel for a virtual tire before starting physical development work. This improves costs but, critically, also cuts down on time, with Kroeber saying that where a physical series of two development loops can take up to three months, with virtual tools and the simulator that time can be reduced to just 90 minutes. Simulators can represent a significant investment, but time savings made possible by the use of simulation can also equate to substantial reductions in financial outlay 46 www.tiretechnologyinternational.com November 2023