REINVENTING THE TIRE: ALGOR FEA Chosen to Verify Wheel Design for Goodyear 'Run-flat' Tires

摘要

Well-inflated tires improve gas mileage, handling and passenger comfort. More importantly, you really can't leave home without them. Or can you? The only way to get on the road again if a normal tire becomes flat is to change it. However, the new "run-flat" tires have been developed to enable automobiles to be driven at normal speeds for limited distances even with no air pressure. Goodyear, the world's largest tire company with annualized sales of more than $14 billion, developed a run-flat solution called an extended mobility technology (EMT) tire. During product development, the company realized that running the tire at low inflation pressures might adversely affect the wheel. A parametric study of inflation pressure and stresses in a common wheel was conducted for Goodyear at the University of Akron using ALGOR FEA software to determine whether low inflation pressures would damage the wheel.