23rd Tire Society Conference planned.

The 23rd Annual Conference of the Tire Society will be held September 20-21 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Akron, OH.

This international conference reviews recent advances in the science and technology of tires. It is attended by engineers, scientists and managers from the tire and vehicle industries, academia and government. This year's meeting will be held in conjunction with the International Tire Engineering Conference (ITEC) 2004.

Tom Datillo, president and CEO of Cooper Tire & Rubber, will present the keynote address. The plenary lecture will be presented by Bob Bernhard, director of the Institute for Safe, Quiet and Durable Highways at Purdue University. The dinner speaker will be Dave McLellan, a former Chevrolet Corvette chief engineer.

The technical program will include the following presentations:

Vehicle Dynamics--"History and current status of the development of a new tire force and moment test procedure called TIME," Stephen Koehne, Continental AG; "Plus-sizing and potential impact on vehicle stability," John Daws, Exponent Failure Analysis Associates; "Evaluation and measurement of driving comfort," Horst Stumpf, TU Wien; "Multi-variable effects of tire structures and alignments on vehicle pull," Young Chiang, Automotive Engineering Design; "A new tire model for road loads simulation: Part 1: Theory and validation," Patrick J. O'Heron, MSC Software; "An advanced shell theory based tire model," Walt Olson, University of Toledo; and "Tire lateral force modeling and the bushing analogy tire model," Ben Kao, Ford Motor.

Tire Design--"Functional model of the tire tread," Milos Stojkovic, University of Nis; "Effect of wide-base and dual tires configurations on pavement damage," Mostafa Elseifi, Virginia Tech Transportation Institute; "Tire design methodology based on safety--factor to satisfy tire life," Kazuyuki Kabe, Yokohama Rubber; "Development of a vertical stiffness relationship for belted radial tires," Tim Rhyne, Michelin Americas Research & Development; "The run flat tire evolution, a system view of essential shape design factors leads to a run flat research and development project and a tire prototype," Peter A. Becker, Mechanical Innovation International Ltd.; "The study on static/dynamic and new dynamic adhesion tests in the cord-rubber system," Jamshidi Masoud, Amirkabir University of Technology; and "A finite element model for oven aged tires," John Baldwin, Ford Motor.

Wear and Traction--"Simulation of local wear behavior by calculating the frictional energy in the contact patch," A. Rieger, Continental AG; "Analysis of frictional energy on the contact surface of tread rubber block," Hyunseung Yoo, Hankuk Aviation University; "Finite element modeling of tires on snow," Sally Shoop, U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory; and "Soil/tire interaction analysis using FEM and FVM," Shoji Oida, Bridgestone.

Tire NVH and Indoor Testing--"Investigation of the influence of safe sealant inside the tire on motor vehicle vibration behavior," Gabriel Anghelache, University of Politehnica of Bucharest; "Optimizing sound quality characteristics of tire tread pattern pitch sequences," Jon Stuckey, Bridgestone/Firestone North American Tire LLC; "Tire non-uniformities and steering wheel vibrations," Hans R. Dorfi, Hankook Tire; and "Technical trends in indoor tire testing," Jerry Potts, Test Measurement Systems.

Tire Materials--"Tire aging mechanisms involving oxygen and strain," Ed Terrill, Akron Rubber Development Laboratory; "Numerical simulation of heat build-up in a rolling tire," Oluremi Olatunbosun, University of Birmingham; "Modeling of the dynamic thermomechanical response of elastomers," Jorgen S. Bergstrom, Exponent Failure Analysis Associates; "Thermo-mechanical modeling of elastomers considering temperature dependent properties," M. Golmohammadi, Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran; and "Hyper- and visco-elastic test system," Ben Choucbaoui, WIDL.

Registration for the 23rd Annual Conference of the Tire Society costs $200, which covers annual membership in the Tire Society, a subscription to Tire Science and Technology, and banquet and conference costs.

Further information is available from the Tire Society [phone].