Over the last few decades, finite element analysis has become an integral part of the overall tire design process. Engineers need to perform a number of different simulations to evaluate new designs and study the effect of proposed design changes. However, tires pose formidable simulation challenges due to the presence of highly non-linear rubber compounds, embedded reinforcements, complex tread geometries, rolling contact and large deformations. Accurate simulation requires careful consideration of these factors, resulting in extensive turnaround time, often times prolonging the design cycle. Therefore, it is extremely critical to explore means to reduce the turnaround time while producing reliable results.

Compute clusters have recently become a cost effective means to perform high performance computing (HPC). Distributed memory parallel (DMP) solvers designed to take advantage of compute clusters have become increasingly popular. In this paper, we examine the use of HPC for various tire simulations and demonstrate how it can significantly reduce simulation turnaround time. Abaqus/Standard is used for routine tire simulaitons like footprint and steady state rolling. Abaqus/Explicit is used for transient rolling and hydroplaning simulations. The run times and scaling data corresponding to models of various sizes and complexity are presented.