'The biggest challenge that tires have ever had to face in motor sport'; Continental special tires for the E racing ODYSSEY 21 race car; The racing series launches in March 2021 at Lac Rose in Senegal; Interview with Nico Meier, Product designer ...
ENPNewswire-July 10, 2020--'The biggest challenge that tires have ever had to face in motor sport'; Continental special tires for the E racing ODYSSEY 21 race car; The racing series launches in March 2021 at Lac Rose in Senegal; Interview with Nico Meier, Product designer at Continental
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Release date- 09072020 - Hanover - Continental is a founding partner and, from 2021, the premium sponsor of the Extreme E series. The technology company will equip all vehicles in the races with tires for the different and very challenging action.
In the interview, Nico Meier, product designer at Continental, talks about the special challenges that the tires are exposed to in this series, the importance of the tire sidewall in general, and its role in the sidewall design of the Extreme E tire in particular.
Nico Meier, product designer at Continental and responsible for the sidewall of the Continental Extreme E tire
Continental: Nico, what is the task of the sidewall of a tire from the viewpoint of a technician?
Nico Meier: The sidewall plays a key role in the overall construction of a tire in the truest sense of the word. Modern mid-size class vehicles now regularly have a permissible gross vehicle weight of 1,500 to almost 2,000 kilograms. The increasingly popular SUVs come to three metric tons. That's roughly the same weight as a full-grown hippo.
Continental: But the whole weight doesn't rest entirely on the sidewall of the tire, does it?
Nico Meier: No. In fact, the sidewall is actually the weakest component compared to the tread that connects the vehicle to the road surface - or the bead that holds tires on the rim. For this reason, you should never direct a pressure washer onto the flank at close range. It could actually be damaged. The load-bearing element in the tire is essentially the air or gas mixture trapped under overpressure. Technicians calculate the load capacity of an ideal diaphragm in accordance with the 'internal pressure x contact surface' function. In the case of tires, the stiff shell structure adds an additional load-bearing component of 10 to 15 percent.
Continental: That sounds like a surprisingly simple formula. Is it really that simple?
Nico Meier: In theory, yes. The load capacity of a tire depends largely on the internal pressure. The sidewall is the crucial element in the shell structure. As a result, it also has an affect on the load capacity and can also compensate for...
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