Goodyear announces official opening of new simulation center in Luxembourg to enhance tire development process
The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company today officially opened its Simulation Center in Luxembourg to welcome a new era for tire design and development.
Outfitted with a DiM250 DYNAMIC Driving Simulator developed by VI-grade, the Center is designed to enhance Goodyear’s collaboration with OEMs and support elite tire performance through personalised product development.
Utilizing virtual tire development process, Goodyear’s team can use the Simulation Center to test and validate tire models for car models that do not yet exist. This allows for speedier production and ensures that tire 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 Center in Luxembourg displays Goodyear’s commitment to investing in and shaping the future of mobility.
“Our virtual tire 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 tire development
The Simulation Center further cements Goodyear long-standing commitment to safety, wellness and sustainability. The use of simulated driving allows for fewer physical tires to be produced and a speedier manufacturing process. It will also help enable Goodyear to achieve first to approval for all development tires 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 tires and 97,500km of physical tire testing[1].
The expansion follows the launch of the inaugural center in Akron Ohio in 2021.
Following a successful first project with Maserati to produce bespoke tires for the Gran Turismo 2023, the Simulation Center is supporting Goodyear on developing tailormade tires for OEMs across the world.
[1] Based on internal calculations.