Smithers Rapra has upgraded the indoor tread wear testing capabilities for passenger, light truck and commercial vehicle tyres of its Tire and Wheel Test Center in Ravenna, Ohio in the US as the company looks to find more controlled and efficient ways of testing tread wear characteristics.
The upgraded equipment and software can run a wide variety of drive profiles while supporting bench marking and development requirements.
Indoor tread wear testing provides a more controlled, consistent and efficient alternative to on-road testing, in terms of characterising how a tyre will wear. Indoor testing can also provide researchers with the ability to run wear studies that would be difficult or cost-prohibitive to perform on roads.
The world leader in rubber, plastics and composites testing expertise, Smithers Rapra is one of the only third party labs to provide the service to tyre companies and material suppliers, said James Popio, Vice President – North America, Smithers Rapra.
Smithers’ tread wear machine can rapidly and consistently induce tread wear with a combination of city and highway driving conditions. Custom drive profiles can be developed to match the particular conditions of a vehicle and course.
A highly accurate CTWIST laser profilometer produced by Starrett is used to measure tread loss, usually at several mileage intervals during the test. Standard reporting includes a full scan of the tread, and documentation of irregular wear (e.g. heel-toe), wear rate and average tread loss across a meridian.
Smithers Rapra operates laboratories in North America, Europe and China, covering a wide variety of testing and consulting services from material chemistry and product durability testing, to tyre, wheel and winter testing.