Smithers experts release paper on correlating tire traction performance on snow

Akron, OH – Smithers announces that Mohit Nitin Shenvi and Eric Pierce, Principal Engineer, have published a paper titled “Correlating tire traction performance on snow with measured parameters of ASTM F1805 using regression analysis.” The paper has been published in Cold Regions Science and Technology, an international journal dealing with the science and technical problems of cold environments. Dr. Corina Sandu and Dr. Costin Untaroiu were also co-authors on the paper.

The experiment and the paper were already underway, funded by the Center for Tire Research (CenTiRe) and its members, when Shenvi, a PhD candidate at Virginia Tech, began serving a co-op rotation at the Smithers Winter Test Center in Brimley, Michigan. Shenvi and Pierce’s goal was to determine whether a Matlab-based machine learning (ML) approach could be utilized to predict the traction coefficient of a given tire based on collected parameters. Shenvi and Pierce used data collected at the Smithers Winter Test Center over a five-year period to conduct the study.
“The move toward a virtual environment-based future for tire development is being discussed in many circles right now,” said Pierce. “The existence of accurate snow material models or computational models is essential for better virtual development of winter tires. Such models could ensure better evaluation of the tire during the design and development stage before the manufacturing stage.”

The paper is free to download until August 5, 2023.

“The virtual world is where more and more development is being done,” said Jim Popio, PhD, Vice President, Smithers Materials Science and Engineering Division. “As proud members of CenTiRe and the support they provide the industry, we saw this as a great opportunity to develop knowledge, collaborate, and support our clients as they look to compare virtual development with real world performance. Snow and ice are difficult elements to model. This study goes a long way towards attempting to find those correlations that will assist with development going forward.”
Earlier this year, Smithers announced the fiftieth anniversary of the Smithers Winter Test Center (SWTC), an 800-acre winter proving ground in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. OEMs and tier suppliers engage the facility for testing and conducting performance evaluations on vehicle systems, tires, and components under extreme cold and hazardous road conditions.