Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. completed work under a $1.5 million government grant to develop advanced tire technology aimed at increasing vehicle fuel efficiency, it announced.
The grant, awarded by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, called for Cooper to develop technology for light vehicle tires that delivered a minimum 3% improvement in vehicle fuel efficiency while lowering average tire weight by at least 20%, all without sacrificing performance.
Cooper was successful in developing technologies that exceeded the project’s goals, it said, delivering an average fuel efficiency improvement of 5.5% and weight reduction ranging from 23% to 37% in concept tires. The grant period began in late 2011 and continued through the end of 2014, with Cooper recently presenting its findings to the DOE. Tire development work under the grant was done at Cooper’s North America and Global Technical Centers, both located in Findlay, Ohio.
“The technical challenges presented by this program were significant, yet the work was extremely gratifying as we addressed sustainability and performance,” said Chuck Yurkovich, Cooper’s senior vice
president of global research and development. “Improving vehicle fuel efficiency by a minimum of 3% was accomplished by developing a product with more than 30% lower rolling resistance. Reducing tire weight by a minimum of 20% required us to make a product that is five to six pounds lighter than the baseline 26-pound tire. All of this was accomplished without any trade-offs in performance or durability.”
According to the tiremaker, it has already incorporated new tire modeling technology developed as a result of this grant work into its development process and is evaluating long wearing and fuel efficient tread compound technology for use in future tires for the replacement and OE markets.
