In April 2021, Continental Tyres purchased a Delta S3 simulator from Ansible Motion. Following a 12-month trial period, the DIL simulator, which is installed at the Contidrom in Germany, is now being adopted on projects. It is being used for both subjective analysis and materials testing – saving valuable development time and cutting down on the production of test tires – with original equipment tire testing accounting for a large portion of the work.

“Virtual development methods enable us to offer solutions even more efficiently and more precisely tailored to the needs and requirements of our customers. Virtual test kilometers also play a major part in conserving valuable resources. With our new driving simulator, we can shorten development times and optimize the use of resources in production and logistics,” noted Bernd Korte, head of passenger tire development for Continental’s original equipment business.

According to Conti, the simulator is high maneuverable, on account of the motion platform, which has a maximum acceleration of 12m/s and enables evaluators to experience all six degrees of freedom of the vehicle dynamics. This enables test drivers to get subjective driving impressions that are comparable to those from tire tests on a real track. New materials can also be assessed in depth in the driving simulator, including material properties and interactions with other materials.

Julian Kroeber, who is responsible for the simulator at Continental, said, “With our driving simulator, we evaluate and optimize a tire before we physically build it for the first time. “This allows us to further optimize our development process. It also saves a lot of time for our customers.”