Motorsports Tire Testing
Speed, Torque and Load
The world’s leading motorsport organizations rely on Calspan for their tire testing. With many years of testing experience and the most powerful tire testing machine in the world, Calspan is the perfect place to test, develop and evaluate all types of motorsports tires. Our secure testing facility and dedicated IT infrastructure ensure intellectual property and test data are always secure and protected.
- Calspan is the world’s leading race tire testing lab with over 40 years of tire testing, working with all top-level racing series.
- The load, speed and torque capabilities of Calspan exceed the capabilities of most race tires.
- Collect data to build tire models to support vehicle simulation and lap time simulation studies.
- Accurately characterize tire sensitivities to tuning parameters such as pressure and camber to find ideal settings for different tracks or drivers.
Speed, Torque and Load
With the most powerful flat-track in the world, race tires can be evaluated at their limits with high speed, high load and high torque capabilities.
Friction and Thermal
Fully understand how tire performance is influenced by setup parameters such as camber and pressure, as well as thermal conditions and road surface roughness.
Lap Simulations
Prepare for the next race event by running detailed and repeatable lap simulations to understand how vehicle setups influence tire degradation and durability over one or more stints.
Our team of tire experts have direct working experience in race and performance engineering for all types of racing series (open-wheeler, prototypes, stock and touring cars) all across the globe. With their help you can be confident to learn how to extract the most out of your tires in the development and setup of race cars.
HIGH SPEED TESTING
High performance tires often operate at elevated speeds for long periods of time, so Calspan’s tire testing machine is capable of running at high speeds for very long periods of time. This makes the machine perfect for evaluating tire performance and durability in fully dynamic conditions. Multiple camera angles and strobe lights are available to study standing wave effects and other behaviors.
THERMAL TESTING
Temperature has a significant impact on the performance of any tire. Fully understanding tire thermal properties under various speeds, inclination angles and inflation pressures is important when designing tires and trying to maximize their efficiency on vehicles. Using a variety of different sensors to measure such things as external surface, internal carcass and gas temperatures, Calspan can record the complete thermal state of a tire during any test. Additionally, we can advise on dedicated test procedures that produce high resolution thermal data for use in thermal tire modeling and tire material characterization.
- Quantify thermal response of rubber compounds and their effect on tire grip.
- Take real-time measurement of both internal and external tire temperatures.
- Use a fully integrated FLIR IR camera for detailed tread, sidewall and bead temperature studies.
Collect data to fully parameterize thermal tire models.
FRICTION TESTING
The complex interaction between the tire tread rubber and the road surface determines ultimate grip levels a tire can generate. Thanks to Calspan's highly consistent grip level on in-lab measurements, sensitivities on friction can efficiently be evaluated. Calspan's experts then couple this information with road surface measurements to create predictive friction and tire models allowing you to plan your vehicle setup and tire allocations to maximize performance in qualifying and race sessions while factoring in track surface evolution during the event.
LAP SIMULATION
Calspan partners with the most innovative motorsports companies to perform tire testing in realistic conditions using lap simulation, whereby actual vehicle test data is imported into our machine which can subject a tire, with great repeatability and reproducibility through the same maneuvers. We can also quickly evaluate what different camber settings (static or dynamic) do to tire grip levels and wear characteristics during a full stint at a race track. In addition, we can simulate severe handling maneuvers such as double-lane changes to evaluate transient performance of different tire designs or sizes.
- Play back lap data (from telemetry or simulation) to measure tire performance in extremely realistic conditions.
- Powerful road and wheel motors allow for high acceleration/deceleration rates to accurately follow speed profiles.
Validate tire models in realistic tire conditions.
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