Tire Mechanics Course celebrates 50 years with classes at University of Akron Sept. 9-13

The tire industry is a whole lot different than it was 50 years ago.

In 1974, radial tire fitments on new cars had just jumped over one year from 19 percent to 44 percent; the average MPG of a car and tire life were both less than half what it is today; and run-on-flat tires had not been invented yet.

But by that time there had already been more than 50 years of fundamental tire science published, but how much was assimilated into the daily life of the tire engineer? At the University of Akron, Rudy Scavuzzo, then head of the Mechanical Engineering Department, is remembered to have said "Here we are in the Rubber Capital but no tire education!"

That observation quickly led to the enlistment of five of the university's adjunct professors, who were all practicing the art at area tire companies, and each experts in their fields, to teach the first Tire Mechanics course 50 years ago.

And that tradition continues Sept. 9-13 with the course being offered at the University of Akron in conjunction with the Tire Society annual meeting.

Those first five instructors a half-century ago were: Jerry Potts and Joe Walter of Firestone, Dan Livingston of Goodyear, Al Veith of B.F. Goodrich and Tom Dudek of General Tire.

The subject matter was wide-ranging, including "The Tire as a Vehicle Component"; "Tire Wear and Traction"; "Tire Materials and Constitutive Properties"; and "The Stress and Deformation."

Joe Padovan, a pioneer in finite elements, was soon added to teach "Advanced Tire Models."

For the first 27 years, the course was held mostly at the University of Akron. For a few of those years, the traditional five-day intensive overview was expanded into an exhaustive full-semester, three-credit masters' level course, with a 1,000+ page compendium of notes compiled by the instructors.

The equations that constitute some of the foundational principles of tire behavior have largely remained the same, but 40 years ago, the figures were nearly all hand drawn and the homework assignments were with pencil and paper—lots of erasing.

Over the years, the teaching evolved from blackboards, to spiral bound notebooks, to overhead projector transparencies, to slide carousels, before finally giving way to computers. The course itself has changed over the years, emphasizing new materials and structures being used in tires, ever more sophisticated testing and analytical techniques, and more and varied computational simulations.

And the roster of instructors evolved, adding notables Alan Gent of the University of Akron, Mike Trinko of Goodyear and Marion Pottinger of Goodrich.

Besides being held at the university, the course was also held at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, General Motors, Goodyear Luxembourg and, in 1978, Bridgestone hosted a session for several tire companies in Japan. One attending student was Yukio Nakajimi, the eventual director of tire research and author of the two-volume tome "Advanced Tire Mechanics."

This September, the course will be held for the 54th time, having trained an estimated 5,000 tire technologists over the years. We interviewed Jerry Potts, an original instructor who is still teaching his section on the "Tire as a Vehicle Component," along with Ben Chung, the University of Akron coordinator for most of the years.

On the question on venue, Chung said: "Our ambition was outreach to every corner in the world."

He approached Jeffery Mundson, then director of events and conferences of Crain Communications Inc., which sponsors of the International Tire Exhibition & Conference, about a partnership of sorts. So starting in T2004, the course was held every other year along with the ITEC.

Chung in 2006 was invited by Mark Fenner, director of conferences and events of UKIP Inc., to offer the course in conjunction with the International Tire Exhibition in Stuttgart, Germany. And the course is still taught at the Expo.

Over the years, one thing has been consistent, which is students leave the course as better tire scientists and engineers, with a better insight into how tires really work.

Potts, on the attention spent in the course to the fundamental equations, said "what you get with the closed-form solution is the interrelationship of all of the variables and how they produce the result. So, instantly, …you become an intuitive expert on what to change in a tire to get more of this or more of that, using those variables."

He also related that he was once asked the question: "Have you changed the class to keep up with technology over the past 40 years?" He said that he responded, only half joking, "I think it may be the other way around. ... Tire technology may have changed because of what we teach in the Tire Mechanics class."

This interview was done by Graham Heeps, then editor of Tire Technology International, following the 2014 award ceremony at which all of the then-staff of the Tire Mechanics Course received Lifetime Achievement Awards at the TTI Conference and Expo.

Over the years, one interesting aspect has been the affinity between the Tire Mechanics Course and the mechanics-oriented Tire Society. Potts and two prior students, Will Mars of Endurica and Bob Pelle of Goodyear, are all ex-presidents of the Tire Society. And James Cuttino, director of tire development and testing at Yokohama Corp. of North America, is the current vice president of the Tire Society, was also a student and is today an instructor for the course.

Two other current instructors are involved with the Tire Society—Annette Lechtenbohmer, recently retired from Goodyear, is secretary, and she and Dr Ron Kennedy, recently retired managing director of the Center for Tire Research (CenTiRe) are both associate editors for the Tire Science and Technology Journal.

The Tire Society has a comparable longevity and commitment to mechanics knowledge dissemination and, for similar reasoning as the Mechanics Course, the annual conference moved off the University of Akron campus in 1998. But,post-Covid, in 2022, the Tire Society Conference returned to the university venue and held the same week as ITEC and the Tire Mechanics Course, during what was deemed Tire Week in Akron, formalized with a formal proclamation by Akron's mayor.

And starting this year, the Tire Mechanics course and Tire Society Conference are together again at the university, and will be held the same week, Sept. 9-13, at the same location, with some shared events and services, refocusing on our shared academic roots.

Upon Chung's retirement, the Mechanics Course is now coordinated by Xiaosheng Gao, of the university's Mechanical Engineering Department. Potts, Cuttino, Lechtenbohmer and Kennedy will be joined by Mahmoud Assaad of Endurica. Course offered this year include:

• "Tire Components, Compounds and Materials";
• "The Tire as a Vehicle Component";
• "Impact of Rubber and Reinforcement Properties on Footprint and Mechanics";
• "Virtual Tire Modeling for Performance Improvement";
• "Tire Sustainability and Environment"; and
• "Applications of Artificial Intelligence."

To take advantage of deeper understanding of Tire Science, you can register at the Tire Society site at tiresociety.org/2024-tire-mechanics-course and the curriculum can be reviewed at the University of Akron site.