TOKYO (Dec. 3, 2004) — Bridgestone Corp. has developed and begun implementing proprietary computer modeling technology that simulates tire performance on nearly any kind of road surface, including unpaved roads and off-road terrain.
Bridgestone claims the new technology, dubbed Comprehensive Road Surroundings Simulation (CROSS), will allow its tire development engineers to streamline work in optimizing tread patterns on tires for four-wheel-drive vehicles, earthmoving equipment, agricultural machinery, all-terrain vehicles, and other vehicles that operate on unpaved surfaces.
CROSS incorporates a breakthrough in analyzing terramechanics, or the behavior of soil under loads. Bridgestone uses a supercomputer to predict the movement and response of soil as it is compacted under a rolling tire. It can even analyze behavior in sunny, rainy and snowy conditions, Bridgestone said.
The new simulation technology greatly reduces the amount of field testing required in tire development, Bridgestone said, and lets engineers simulate a greater range of surfaces than would be available for field testing.