"Cordiant" and IRNITU are developing new equipment for tire testing
The Scientific and Technical Center "Intair" and the Irkutsk National Research Technical University (IRNITU) are jointly developing the first test stand in Russia, which should provide reliable information on the friction force between the tire and the road surface. The key feature of the new stand is the ability to study the characteristics of tires that directly affect the manageability and stability of the vehicle, and its full-fledged operation at the STC is expected to begin within the next two years, the press service of "Cordiant" reported.
In the first stage of the project, the partners will conduct research on the process of rubber friction. After that, tests of rubber will be carried out in accordance with the required loads and speeds, and then the development and verification of the methodology for determining the friction coefficient are planned. It is noted that the unique stand will allow obtaining a large array of data for modeling the behavior of tires and selecting optimal solutions for different types of constructions: both seasonal and application areas.
According to the head of "Cordiant" Vadim Volodin, the company has been cooperating with the Department of Automobile Transport of IRNITU for many years, and the result of the new stage of partnership "will be a truly innovative development of stand equipment for the industry". "Productive joint work will help make another step towards increasing the reliability and safety of the tires we produce," he emphasized.
The director of LLC "STC "Intair" Dmitry Golubev notes that "the correct account of friction between the tire and the road is very important for obtaining accurate calculation results of the tire behavior in statics and dynamics, since friction has a direct impact on the forces and moments acting on the tire. In turn, the quality of accounting for forces and moments depends on the stability and manageability characteristics laid down in the design".
As added by Oleg Yankov, associate professor of the Department of Automobile Transport of IRNITU, "the project is especially relevant since there was no methodology for determining the nonlinear friction coefficient of rubber in Russia before", and for this reason, it represents "an excellent opportunity to make an important contribution to the development of the domestic tire industry".
STC "Intair" was established in 2009 to develop products and technologies for "Cordiant". The central office of the STC is located in Moscow, and its branches are in Kaluga, Omsk, Ulyanovsk, and Yaroslavl.