French Subscribe News / Equipment Print page. Continental Tire’s Uvalde proving grounds test tires, Texas style

Tires are currently the third or fourth-highest expense for the majority of fleets, yet they continue to be regarded as commodities. They are much more than simply "round and black." The engineering and testing that goes into top-tier tires is truly astounding, but the vast majority of tire purchasers never consider it. The selection of tires is frequently determined by price, which is not the optimal criterion.

Unfortunately, the majority of tire purchasers never have the opportunity to observe tire engineering in action. Recently, Continental Tire gave a group of truck correspondents a tour of its testing facility in Uvalde, Texas.

The event, dubbed ContiExperience, provided journalists, dealers, and select fleet customers with hands-on demonstrations of multiple tire testing and evaluation experiences as well as a comprehensive tour of the proving grounds.

Continental Tire Research & Development North America's Uvalde Proving Grounds (UPG) occupies nearly 5,000 acres and is located approximately 12 kilometers (8 miles) south of Uvalde, Texas, which is approximately 135 kilometers (85 miles) west of San Antonio. The facility can test and evaluate any type of tire, from tires for passenger cars and light vehicles to tires for medium- and heavy-duty trucks and even tires for enormous earthmovers.

The year-round testing under similar conditions is possible due to the climate's heat and aridity. On any given day, up to 20 or 30 testing programs may be in progress at the site. Continental leases site access to various OEMs, research firms, and others. Each year, testers and researchers at the site record approximately 3.3 million miles (5.3 million km), or approximately 70,000 hours of testing time, and consume approximately 20,000 tires.

Uvalde Proving Grounds

General Tire constructed the facility in 1959, commencing with an 8.7-mile (14 km) oval track designed to test passenger car tires. The track enabled uninterrupted travel at speeds greater than what would have been feasible on public roads. This method yielded highly reproducible and comparable outcomes.

In the 1980s, tire manufacturers constructed additional tracks in response to shifting consumer demands. In addition to mileage, performance, and damage resistance, consumer interest was growing in tire safety characteristics. Midway through the 1980s, the facility had a variety of test surfaces and tracks that replicated everything from interstate highways to city streets.

Continental acquired General Tire in 1987, and the proving grounds arrived with the acquisition.

At the time, American motorists and automakers were focusing on the significance of tire performance and failure resistance on rough roads. Continental, a company with European origins, shifted its focus to handling and safety, including reducing stopping distances and preventing aquaplaning. This shift in emphasis resulted in the creation of additional safety-related testing facilities, such as aquaplaning pools, dry handling courses, and damp grip surfaces.

To improve the efficacy and safety of tire endurance testing, Continental engineers created a driverless test vehicle in 2018 that could run the track until it ran out of fuel. Automation and the ability to precisely control vehicles not only improved test results, but also optimized track use and reduced track degradation. It also made research significantly safer. No longer must human drivers navigate trucks for hundreds of hours along the monotonous route.

About 26 paved and off-road courses and 400 test vehicles, including heavy equipment, tractors, passenger cars, light trucks, commercial vehicles, motorcycles, and trailers, are available at the Uvalde Proving Grounds today. It also features over 6,000 square feet of shop and private office space, as well as secured facilities for automotive testing groups unrelated to tires.

Wet Traction Testing

Continental was unable to take a group of journalists to all of the facility's test sites, but we did visit the Wet Handling Track. It is a 15-acre, 800800-foot asphalt plaza (the largest in North America) constructed to exacting standards.

Although it appears flat and level, it has a 1% grade across the entire surface, allowing water from a perforated pipe at the top of the pad to run at controllable depths (from 0.05 to 0.1 inches) over the surface. The runoff is gathered and redirected into underground storage containers for future use. Water is extracted from a subterranean well and recycled extensively for use in other damp testing areas.

Due to its size, the pad is ideal for testing damp traction while performing high-speed maneuvers. Before attempting a maneuver such as accelerating or braking in a turn or on a long sweeping curve, serpentine maneuvers, or even jackknife maneuvers, cars and vehicles can easily reach highway speed.

We were able to operate a Peterbilt Model 567 sleeper tractor with a bobtail through a long, sweeping curve with a full ABS stop. The vehicle was equipped with Conti Ecoplus HS3+ 295/75R22.5 steer and ContiTread HDL 3 LTL-R retreaded drive tires. I accelerated through a decreasing radius curve between 40 and 50 miles per hour (60-80 kilometers per hour) and never lost traction, which was mildly surprising for a bobtail tractor with little weight to keep the tires on the track. During the full-application ABS stop, the vehicle moved in a straight line. The demonstration of the traction afforded by those tires was quite impressive.

In addition, there was a straight, wet course where Continental assesses wet stopping distance. With a thin layer of water flowing across the track, the truck reaches speeds of up to 50 miles per hour (80 kilometers per hour) and makes a full ABS stop that is remotely activated for measurement purposes. In Continental-reported comparisons, the aforementioned retreaded drive tires accomplished a shorter stopping distance than a competitor's budget virgin tire — the same type of tire that fleets typically opt for instead of retreaded tires.

The retreaded tires were able to halt in a distance of 57.175 meters (187.6 feet), while the new tires of the competitor traveled 57.625 meters (189.05 feet), or about two feet further. That's not much, but it demonstrates that the tread pattern and compound are comparable to or marginally superior to the new tire.

Explaining the significance of the test, Continental's product marketing manager Bridney Jordan stated, "The greatest obstacle our sales team must overcome is convincing fleets to trust retreaded tires." "Fleets will tell us that they do not believe in retreading, reconditioned tires, etc. That is the furthest thing from the truth. Here, we demonstrated that the Conti retread stopped quicker than the brand-new tire."

When conducting genuine wet traction testing, each test is conducted seven times, the shortest and longest runs are eliminated, and the remaining five runs are averaged.

Dry handling test

Although the Dry Handling test does not apply to heavy vehicles, it demonstrated how tread compounds, casing design, and tread design affect traction and handling.

The track, constructed in 2015, is a 1.07-mile asphalt-surfaced road course with a 1,200-foot straightaway, 50- to 500-foot curves, turns, and bends. Various tire designs and constructions are evaluated based on their dry-terrain performance. On this course, vehicle construction and suspension evaluations are also conducted.

Reporters completed two circuits in each of two vehicles: a four-cylinder turbocharged Ford Mustang with General Tire G-Max RS tires and a V-6 Dodge Challenger with Continental ExtremeContact Sport 02 tires.

The vehicles are well-instrumented for actual testing and evaluations, but the reporter's test drivers were, at best, subjective. I concluded that the Challenger could achieve an additional 10 mph with Conti's ExtremeContact Sport tires, while maintaining excellent road handling at velocities approaching 70 mph.

Curbing test

The final test we observed was the curbing test, in which tires are driven over and off curbs to evaluate their resistance to shredding, chipping, and scrub damage. The demonstration we observed involved a tractor with a bobtail, so the tires were not overstressed. Typically, the trucks are laden to capacity. More than a few tires had been sacrificed in the search for more resilient treads and sidewalls, as evidenced by the rubber scraps lying along the curb.

Specialty tests

There were nine distinct courses designed to evaluate the resistance of tires to harm from rough and rocky terrain. Using various varieties of rock, stone, and gravel spread over hard and soft surfaces, trucks would run a predetermined number of laps to evaluate tread cutting and shipping caused by the gravel overlay.

One course consisted of a circular bed containing pea gravel. The tires' ability to expel stones from between the treads would be evaluated by driving trucks over gravel and then onto a paved surface. Or, to ascertain the degree to which un-ejected stones drilled into the casing.

Some of the off-road courses were extremely difficult, with golf-ball to soft-ball-sized pebbles, soft sand, and a section of track with embedded telephone poles. There were gradients as steep as 33 percent and surfaces varying from smooth concrete to gravel-covered soil. Engineers utilize these obstacles to evaluate traction and tread damage susceptibility.

Digital tire monitoring

Continental also displayed ContiConnect, its digital tire monitoring solution. Among other metrics, the system monitors tire inflation pressure, casing temperature, and mileage using proprietary sensors. The collected information is sent to the ContiConnect web portal.

Over-the-road fleets can elect for the ContiConnect Live solution, where data is transmitted in real time from the truck's onboard telematics unit to the web portal. This solution offers GPS asset monitoring to increase fuel efficiency, prolong tire life, and reduce labor costs associated with manual tire inspections. Continental claims it can also be used to identify stolen or lost tires.

Local and regional fleets that return to base frequently may prefer the ContiConnect Yard in-yard option. In the yard, vehicles pass a reader station where data is collected and transmitted to the ContiConnect platform. Any tire issues can be addressed while the vehicle is in the yard thanks to instant alerts. According to the company, tire inspections and fleet reviews can be performed without touching the tire.

Continental is presently developing a tire-scanning app for smartphones that will use the camera to create a three-dimensional image of the tire that can be used to measure tread depth. The superintendent of field engineering at Continental, Trey Thompson, stated that the app is based on the same facial recognition technology.

"All you have to do is approach the tire and take a picture of it, and [the app] will connect to the tire's internal sensors," he explained.

Data from the sensors and the 3-D image are uploaded to the ContiConnect platform and are instantaneously readable by all service subscribers.

Thompson did not specify when the application would be available.

So, while price will always be a factor when purchasing tires, it is important to consider the components of the tire before mounting it on the truck. A cheap tire may appear to be a good deal at the time, but if its life span or resistance to harm is half that of a premium tire, is it really a bargain?