The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company officially opened its Simulation Centre in Luxembourg to welcome a new era for tyre design and development.
Outfitted with a DiM250 DYNAMIC Driving Simulator developed by VI-grade, the Centre is designed to enhance Goodyear’s collaboration with OEMs and support elite tyre performance through personalised product development.
Utilising virtual tyre development processes, Goodyear’s team can use the Simulation Centre to test and validate tyre models for car models that do not yet exist. This allows for speedier production and ensures that tyre modifications can be made in the development process to suit the vehicle’s needs.
Romain Hansen, vice president EMEA Product Development at Goodyear, says, “The opening of our industry-leading Simulation Centre in Luxembourg displays Goodyear’s commitment to investing in and shaping the future of mobility.
“Our virtual tyre development team has run numerous projects to date with the leading OEMs from Europe, the US and China,” said Hansen. “Once the automotive engineers experience our virtual development process, they acknowledge both the potential business and possible sustainability impacts.”
Goodyear vision for future tyre development
The Simulation Centre further cements Goodyear’s long-standing commitment to safety, wellness and sustainability. The use of simulated driving allows for fewer physical tyres to be produced and a speedier manufacturing process. It will also help enable Goodyear to achieve first to approval for all development tyres with only one physical iteration. In fact, based on Goodyear calculations, the ability to develop one physical iteration will save an average of 13,000 tyres and 97,500km of physical tire testing[1].
The expansion follows the launch of the inaugural centre in Akron Ohio in 2021.
Following a successful first project with Maserati to produce bespoke tyres for the Gran Turismo 2023, the Simulation Centre is supporting Goodyear on developing tailormade tyres for OEMs across the world.
