Get the tire production rolling

NX CAD, CAE and CAM software supports product development from the initial concept to industry design, construction, simulation and all the way to manufacturing.

The process starts with sketching with constraints, a sketch of the main section of the tire and a 2D draft to define this section. The section is used to create a solid model and for cutting grooves and cross-patterns. Finally, the groove is patterned around the rest of the tire, this way creating the tire tread.

When a tire travels in water, it changes its shape. If the forces on the tread are strong enough, the tire will eventually lift off the ground and skate on the water. The aim is to prevent this phenomenon for as long as possible.

In Simcenter, CFD (computational fluid dynamics) data are coupled to FEA (Finite Element Analysis) code to evaluate the entire deformation process. An overset grid allows for spinning the tire with mesh deformation, data of the material properties of the tire are included to ensure correct results.    

MF-Swift, which is part of the SimCenter family, makes it possible to predict the forces that a tire will produce and transfer to the vehicle when running over an obstacle.

The simulation in MF-Swift predicts occurring forces exactly and passes this information on to the digital twin of the vehicle. This helps optimize the passengers’ comfort this vehicle is able to provide.    

Just like the tires are designed and tested digitally before production, the entire production process is planned, simulated and optimized in a virtual environment with the help of its digital twin.

An entire suite of software from Siemens is available to cover the entire process from rubber mixing to the virtual commissioning of the machinery and even to efficient and error-free standardization based on libraries.

The production of a quality tire starts with the optimal rubber mixture.

Simcenter supports the precise analysis of the rubber mixing process. This way, local viscosity decreases in areas of high shear strain, bulk viscosity decreases due to average temperature rises and centerline areas of high viscosity due to local fluid stagnation caused by counter-rotating screws can be identified and avoided beforehand.    

Tecnomatix Plant Simulation enables the virtual design and visualization of the entire plant’s layout. This makes it an excellent tool for material flow and throughput optimization. It helps discover bottlenecks and even optimize energy consumption. Such visualization during the design phase helps reduce the overall time to market, ensure a safe and risk-free work environment and easily optimize the process by considering each production step – even down to a single production resource. 

Virtual commissioning based on the “software in the loop” approach based on the TIA Portal, PLCSIM Advanced and Mechatronics Concept Designer is a crucial factor when it comes to reducing commissioning times in the real world and preventing costly machine crashes. At the same time, prototyping efforts are reduced noticeably, machines can be optimized during development, this way putting an end to the common trial-and-error approach in the real world and machine operators can be trained before a machine is actually commissioned.

The entire functionality of the machine can be validated and optimized within the PLC code while the complete manufacturing process is monitored by WinCC.

Commissioning of the real machine is accelerated considerably thanks to preceding virtual commissioning and the integration of mechanical and electrical design with automation using a common database.

The validated manufacturing processes and the PLC code are transferred to the TIA Portal and directly passed on to the real machine.

A customized tire library is available to support a standardized operating philosophy independent of the supplier and modularization. The automation of multiple, identical and recurring work steps boosts engineering efficiency through the automatic generation of visualization objects and helps prevent errors.

The tire library generates more than 75,000 objects within less than 10 minutes and PLC program changes are automatically traced in the HMI for automatic HMI adjustments. Operators as well as other users of the data obtain identical information about the machine and misinterpretations are prevented.

MindSphere, the cloud-based, open IoT operating system from Siemens makes it possible to collect and analyze data and transform them into valuable knowledge. 

The centerpiece of a powerful data eco-system, MindSphere provides analytics and connectivity capabilities, developer tools, applications and services to evaluate and utilize all available data in a meaningful way for maximized asset performance and uptime.

On top of that, MindSphere also makes it possible to immediately develop, deploy and run digital services and to create own applications and even new business models. 

Siemens Industrial Edge closes the gap between local and cloud computing and facilitates high-frequency data exchange at the field level.

Siemens Industrial Edge includes a backend called Edge Management as well as tailored Edge Devices and Edge Apps for intelligent data analysis and increased productivity