New testing technology to evaluate lateral ice performance of tires

To drive with a vehicle on an icy road surface with standard winter tires (non studded) is due to the low friction potential one of the most critical driving situations appearing in the winter season. To lower the risk for accidents it is necessary to develop tires with increased ice performance. To do so reproducible test methods to evaluate tires potential to transmit forces on ice are necessary. Driving in an ice circle to evaluate the lateral force transmission of tires on ice is a difficult test procedure and its reproducibility can be improved. The newly developed test method is coupling a normal vehicle to a guiding rail and enables the measurement of lateral forces in dependency of the side slip angle of the tires. The new method is highly reproducible and correlating to the ice circle measurement procedure. Not just getting an average lap time to drive in the ice circle, but complete lateral force characteristics is a big benefit of the new test method enabling the tire developers to build up further knowledge about the force transmission of tires on ice, but in future to increase the friction potential even more.