Abstract
Most people take tires for granted: Tires are not noticeable, black and round and all the same. But if one has some more information, it becomes clear that a tire is an important part of vehicle safety. The small contact patch (footprint) is the only direct link between the vehicle and the road. This link must handle large forces under all conditions and this is possible only because the tire is a high tech product, engineered using the most modern tools. Besides the fundamental features nowadays a tire has to fulfill additional properties like low noise radiation and extended mobility capability.
A lot of efforts were made in the last two decades to lower the tire/road noise. The road industry has started to use open porous asphalts instead of the common split matrix surface, the tire industry has optimized the tread pattern as the main influence parameter so that nowadays the radiated sound pressure of a modern tire in the far field is very close to a blank tire with same construction. First results from an increased understanding of noise generation and radiation mechanisms gained by further development of experimental and simulation techniques were reported.
Most people take also the inflation pressure in their tires for granted. This will change dramatically in the case of a tire puncture. At this point Continental´s Extended Mobility Systems (EMS) play an important role in order to overcome a tire breakdown in the most convenient way and at the same time making the spare tire superfluous. Continental´s EMS portfolio is based on standard tires and wheels. It includes runflat tires and sealant kits.
Keywords:acoustic holography, inverse boundary element method, time domain inverse boundary element method, low noise tire, extended mobility tire