Basic Car Tyre Development Principles

Purpose of this paper is to give general principles of tyre development, seen as a vehicle component, paying attention to links between car chassis and tyre, more than to the intrinsic difficulties of tyre design.

Minimal reference is made to how tyres perform and the theoretical/experimental methods used to obtain tyre properties. Emphasis is mainly on tyre development seen as a process indicating its main logical steps and how each phase is linked to those of chassis design. Starting from features least dependent on the car, comfort and handling are then analysed showing how tyre and chassis are now defined by mainly empirical methods.

Reference is then made to moves under way to render tyre/chassis tuning more objective and feasible from the earliest car design stages using mathematical models to simulate car dynamics.