FSAE Tire Test Consortium -- Round 6

[DougMilliken]

The FSAE TTC just passed 400 members (400 and 401 earlier today). This message is also posted in the Round 3 sticky thread. A few thoughts:

+ Thanks to all the TTC contributors -- Calspan TIRF (show those logos!), tire companies, WSU for hosting our secure site, other industry supporters and volunteers...and of course all the member schools. The TTC has been far more successful than the founders ever imagined. The first members joined nearly 10 years ago.

+ Not sure if your university is a member? Check the list (spreadsheet) at,
http://www.millikenresearch.com/fsaettcaccount.xls

+ If your school is a member, you can register for the forum with your university domain email at, http://sae.wsu.edu/ttc/
It might take a day or two to be approved.

+ Not sure of the TTC license terms? Check the section named, "USE OF THE DATA – FSAE TTC LICENSE AGREEMENT" on this page, http://www.millikenresearch.com/fsaettc.html
To maintain our student discount at Calspan, it is important that there is no commercial use of the tire data or posting on the open internet. The TTC secure forum is the place to discuss the tire data in detail.

+ Round 6 is tentatively scheduled for February 2015. Please post requests and suggestions to the secure forum--
‹ Tire Testing < Round 6 Pre-Test Discussion.

-- Doug Milliken for the TTC

[Edward M. Kasprzak]

A brief historical note:

Ten years ago this week the seeds for the FSAE Tire Test Consortium were sown at the 2004 SAE Motorsports Engineering Conference in Dearborn, MI. Informal discussions took place between Dave Gentz (Calspan), Doug Milliken (Milliken Research Associates, Inc.), myself (MRA), Dr. Bob Woods (University of Texas--Arlington) and numerous students actively seeking sources of tire data, foremost among which was Denny Trimble (University of Washington). From these discussions the FSAE TTC was created with the goal of making relevant, professional-quality tire data accessible to all teams/students at a modest cost.

Ten years later the FSAE TTC has over 400 member schools. We have conducted five rounds of tests on 25 tires across six manufacturers. A private forum was established in 2009 and over 1200 username requests have since been approved. Round 6 is on the horizon (now looking like March 2015, not February). We never imagined this would be so successful or long-lasting. Indeed, our initial hope was to sign-up 20-25 teams to cover the (discounted) cost of a single, modest tire test--now known as Round 1!

The TTC Directors would like to thank all the TTC members for their support and Calspan for their continued partnership. We appreciate the respect students have shown both us and the tire data. We appreciate seeing the Calspan decal on your cars.

Best regards,

[troot]

With a lot of teams shifting to 10's testing of more widths and perhaps finding a way to get full load range would be welcome, I understand there are some physical issues with this but it would be great.

[mech5496]

I'm with troot on this one; Hoosier LC0s' and Avon 10s' are really high on my list right now

[MCoach]

I've posted information relevant to the LC0 tire in the pre-discussion round 6 thread in the TTC forums a few weeks ago if you'd like to discuss some options further, Harry.