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The Michelin Group invited us for a round-table press meet with Mr. Dominique Aimon (Vice-President - Technical and Scientific Communications) at The Lalit Hotel in New Delhi. The press meet revolved around a presentation made by Mr. Aimon about ‘Rethinking the Future of Mobility’ and the discussion that centered around the present and future of sustainable mobility.
A brief introduction about the man himself would go a long way in explaining that the meet was not related to commerce in any direct sense but was purely a show of Michelin’s research and development capabilities and their vision of future individual and commercial transportation needs within India and the rest of the world.
Mr. Dominique Aimon is the Vice President of Technical and Scientific Communication, Michelin Group since April 2012. He has been with Michelin Group for past 32 years and has spent 1/3 of his career in various manufacturing positions, 1/3 in Research and development and 1/3 in marketing and communication.
Mr. Dominique began his career in August 1982 with Michelin Group as Manager for the Industrialization of Earthmover tires. In 1988, he moved to the Michelin Research Center of Ladoux to head the Development of 2 Wheel tires. He took responsibility for the Development of High Performance Passenger Car tires in 1991 and was appointed Internal Communication Director for the Michelin Group in the year 1996.
Post that, in the year 2000, he was designated as Product Marketing Manager for the Worldwide Strategic Business Unit, Passenger Car and Light Truck Tires. From 2007 to 2010 he was involved in a transformation program of the Worldwide Michelin Group Research and development division. In 2010 and 2011, he was Customer racing and Vintage tyres Director.
Mr. Dominique has obtained his degree in civil engineering from the Ecole Centrale de Lyon and a master degree from UC Berkeley. After spending 2 years in a Tunisian university as head of a civil engineering department, he joined the Michelin Group in 1982. (text courtesy Michelin India)
The Presentation:
Mr Aimon made a slide presentation as the core of the meet which was followed by a question/answer session. And with a man with as rich an experience as his, both qualitatively and quantitatively speaking, the interaction was peppered with loads of in-depth insights into the technology and science of tyres. I’ll share a few of those with you here.
A few startling facts and figures about the R&D of Michelin:
# Manpower strength of some 6600 people!
# Has its own test track that has facilities and dimensions at par with the best of Formula 1 tracks across the world.
# Does enough rolling tests on tyres each month to take the tyres once around the globe allied with some 1.5 million measurements each year.
# Some 140000 hrs of simulation each month and 75000 static or dynamic tests a year.
# 40,000 on-vehicle tests a year
# 80,000 cubic meters of water used during testing treated and recycled each year
Following are some screen captures from videos show by Michelin depicting their testing and design prowess.
Simulation:
Rolling Contact Patch simulation
Tyre aerodynamics
Contact patch loading
Physical Testing
Wet grip in a curve
Wet testing track
Wet/dry combo testing
Tread penetration
Wet road contact patch analysis using dyed water (note the glass plate under the dye over which the tyre rolls. There are high-frame rate cameras mounted beneath the glass plate to get a high contrast picture of the tyre contact patch rolling through the dyed water)
Rolling road abrasion test
Materiel tensile testing
Tyre carcass deformation test
Wet surface braking
Truck on a wet circular track
Wet surface braking for motorcycle tyres
Tyre slip test
The current thrust of research and development at Michelin is towards maximizing the energy efficiency of the tyres being made for road use. A tyre inherently uses up energy to keep rolling – so much so that for a typical passenger car 1 out of every 5 tankfulls of fuel go towards this energy utilization by the tyre itself! The corresponding ratio for commercial vehicles is 1 in every 3 tankfulls. Most of this energy gets wasted as the tyre flexes while rolling forward. A careful look at the tyre contact patch shows that it goes flat there. This deformation needs energy to happen and again needs energy to regain its original shape. Almost 60% of the wasted energy from a tyre has its origins in this. An interesting comparision can be brought up here which will also make it easier to understand the importance of the issue. Railroad transportation is inherently cheaper compared to road transportation (of course while comparing identical loads and volumes while keeping aside the infrastructure costs). This happens largely due to the fact that not much of the engine power is wasted in overcoming the railroad wheels’ deformation under load and its subsequent regaining of its original shape when unloaded while rolling. A train wheel (metal on metal) deforms very very less compared to a rubber tyre. It has a ‘flat-spot’ barely a couple of millimeters across and so the rolling wheel can be said to be an almost 5000 sided polygon. A rubber tyre in contrast is a 30 sided polygon. No wonder the rubber tyre needs so much energy just to get it moving and keep it rolling.
This energy wastage is akin to the tyre being constantly pushed uphill and this simulation has even become a measure of tyre efficiency. The initial tyres were inefficient enough to be running up a 3% grade (3 meters up for every 100 meters forward). The present tyres (for example the Michelin XM2 car tyre) is at a 1% uphill grade equivalent. The train wheel is about 0.14%, an ideal that the rubber tyre might never actually achieve.
A typical automobile tyre faces contradictory demands. It needs to be able to flex easily to take in road irregularities and at the same time be stiff enough to let the contact patch be predictable in shape and properties. Newer materials (silica based rubber for example) allow precise tailoring of properties such that the rubber deforms with a little force for low-frequency loads and goes rigid under high frequency loads. Low frequency loads are those arising from encountering road irregularities while rolling (events happening not quicker than 1/10th of a second or so) while high-frequency loads are deformations occurring at the contact patch occurring within a thousandth part of a second.
The future tyres shall be narrower and taller with rim diameters on the other side of 20 inches expected to become more common. Taller wheels make for slower wheel speeds and so reduced energy demands. Of course this will go hand in hand with lighter materials both for the rims and the tyres.
Even though there was no specific discussion about motorcycle tyres, the wealth of information shared on tyres in general more than made up for that loss. And we can expect a discussion on 2-wheeler tyres in the near future.
A brief introduction about the man himself would go a long way in explaining that the meet was not related to commerce in any direct sense but was purely a show of Michelin’s research and development capabilities and their vision of future individual and commercial transportation needs within India and the rest of the world.
Mr. Dominique Aimon is the Vice President of Technical and Scientific Communication, Michelin Group since April 2012. He has been with Michelin Group for past 32 years and has spent 1/3 of his career in various manufacturing positions, 1/3 in Research and development and 1/3 in marketing and communication.
Mr. Dominique began his career in August 1982 with Michelin Group as Manager for the Industrialization of Earthmover tires. In 1988, he moved to the Michelin Research Center of Ladoux to head the Development of 2 Wheel tires. He took responsibility for the Development of High Performance Passenger Car tires in 1991 and was appointed Internal Communication Director for the Michelin Group in the year 1996.
Post that, in the year 2000, he was designated as Product Marketing Manager for the Worldwide Strategic Business Unit, Passenger Car and Light Truck Tires. From 2007 to 2010 he was involved in a transformation program of the Worldwide Michelin Group Research and development division. In 2010 and 2011, he was Customer racing and Vintage tyres Director.
Mr. Dominique has obtained his degree in civil engineering from the Ecole Centrale de Lyon and a master degree from UC Berkeley. After spending 2 years in a Tunisian university as head of a civil engineering department, he joined the Michelin Group in 1982. (text courtesy Michelin India)
The Presentation:
Mr Aimon made a slide presentation as the core of the meet which was followed by a question/answer session. And with a man with as rich an experience as his, both qualitatively and quantitatively speaking, the interaction was peppered with loads of in-depth insights into the technology and science of tyres. I’ll share a few of those with you here.
A few startling facts and figures about the R&D of Michelin:
# Manpower strength of some 6600 people!
# Has its own test track that has facilities and dimensions at par with the best of Formula 1 tracks across the world.
# Does enough rolling tests on tyres each month to take the tyres once around the globe allied with some 1.5 million measurements each year.
# Some 140000 hrs of simulation each month and 75000 static or dynamic tests a year.
# 40,000 on-vehicle tests a year
# 80,000 cubic meters of water used during testing treated and recycled each year
Following are some screen captures from videos show by Michelin depicting their testing and design prowess.
Simulation:
Rolling Contact Patch simulation
Tyre aerodynamics
Contact patch loading
Physical Testing
Wet grip in a curve
Wet testing track
Wet/dry combo testing
Tread penetration
Wet road contact patch analysis using dyed water (note the glass plate under the dye over which the tyre rolls. There are high-frame rate cameras mounted beneath the glass plate to get a high contrast picture of the tyre contact patch rolling through the dyed water)
Rolling road abrasion test
Materiel tensile testing
Tyre carcass deformation test
Wet surface braking
Truck on a wet circular track
Wet surface braking for motorcycle tyres
Tyre slip test
The current thrust of research and development at Michelin is towards maximizing the energy efficiency of the tyres being made for road use. A tyre inherently uses up energy to keep rolling – so much so that for a typical passenger car 1 out of every 5 tankfulls of fuel go towards this energy utilization by the tyre itself! The corresponding ratio for commercial vehicles is 1 in every 3 tankfulls. Most of this energy gets wasted as the tyre flexes while rolling forward. A careful look at the tyre contact patch shows that it goes flat there. This deformation needs energy to happen and again needs energy to regain its original shape. Almost 60% of the wasted energy from a tyre has its origins in this. An interesting comparision can be brought up here which will also make it easier to understand the importance of the issue. Railroad transportation is inherently cheaper compared to road transportation (of course while comparing identical loads and volumes while keeping aside the infrastructure costs). This happens largely due to the fact that not much of the engine power is wasted in overcoming the railroad wheels’ deformation under load and its subsequent regaining of its original shape when unloaded while rolling. A train wheel (metal on metal) deforms very very less compared to a rubber tyre. It has a ‘flat-spot’ barely a couple of millimeters across and so the rolling wheel can be said to be an almost 5000 sided polygon. A rubber tyre in contrast is a 30 sided polygon. No wonder the rubber tyre needs so much energy just to get it moving and keep it rolling.
This energy wastage is akin to the tyre being constantly pushed uphill and this simulation has even become a measure of tyre efficiency. The initial tyres were inefficient enough to be running up a 3% grade (3 meters up for every 100 meters forward). The present tyres (for example the Michelin XM2 car tyre) is at a 1% uphill grade equivalent. The train wheel is about 0.14%, an ideal that the rubber tyre might never actually achieve.
A typical automobile tyre faces contradictory demands. It needs to be able to flex easily to take in road irregularities and at the same time be stiff enough to let the contact patch be predictable in shape and properties. Newer materials (silica based rubber for example) allow precise tailoring of properties such that the rubber deforms with a little force for low-frequency loads and goes rigid under high frequency loads. Low frequency loads are those arising from encountering road irregularities while rolling (events happening not quicker than 1/10th of a second or so) while high-frequency loads are deformations occurring at the contact patch occurring within a thousandth part of a second.
The future tyres shall be narrower and taller with rim diameters on the other side of 20 inches expected to become more common. Taller wheels make for slower wheel speeds and so reduced energy demands. Of course this will go hand in hand with lighter materials both for the rims and the tyres.
Even though there was no specific discussion about motorcycle tyres, the wealth of information shared on tyres in general more than made up for that loss. And we can expect a discussion on 2-wheeler tyres in the near future.
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