A new procedure of the crown contour design for the motorcycle tire is proposed in this paper. The explicit finite element method (FEM) combined with the neural network has been utilized to optimize the cornering property of the motorcycle tire. For the motorcycle tire, the camber thrust is one of the most important cornering characteristics. The explicit FEM has been utilized for the camber thrust prediction to avoid poor numerical stability that will be caused by the implicit FEM. The prediction of the camber thrust that the results of finite element analyses (FEA) were in good agreement with the experimental results has been verified. For the approximation of the design space in the optimization, the neural network has been utilized to circumvent the multipeak and huge CPU time problems. The objective functions of the optimization were both the linearity of camber thrust and the uniformity of pressure distribution in the contact area. The design variable was the crown contour expressed by three variables, and the number of variables was defined in consideration of decreasing the number of FEA. The procedure has been applied to the practical development of a motorcycle tire and verified to be an effective method to improve the handling performance at the proving ground.
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