OREANDA-NEWS. The Contidrom, Continental’s “prototype” and benchmark tire test facility, is about to celebrate its 50th anniversary. Initially, the Contidrom comprised a high-speed 2.8-kilometer oval, which remains an impressive feature to this day. The other tracks, such as the 1.8-kilometer wet-handling course and the 3.8-kilometer dry-handling track were added during later expansion stages. Since 2012, important tests can also be conducted indoors in the all-weather Automated Indoor Braking Analyzer (AIBA). In all, Continental has tested some 1.3 million tires here since the facility first opened. The company’s future plans include an additional wet-handling course, which is to be an identical replica of the existing one. The idea is not to test even more tires, but simply to ease the pressure on this heavily used track. The Contidrom currently provides work for around 100 employees. With its wealth of precision testing options, the test track just outside Hanover has become more and more important over the years, driving progress in tire development in conjunction with the company’s R&D activities by documenting the performance characteristics of the tires out on the track. All of which help Continental to make an important contribution to greater road safety.

The latest addition to the test facilities is the AIBA, which was opened in 2012. In this all-weather test facility up to 100,000 braking tests a year can be conducted on dry, wet, and even icy road surfaces. Aided by the extremely precise findings delivered by the AIBA, Continental has been able to make further progress in the development of passenger car, van and 4x4 summer and winter tires. The facility is housed in a hall 300 m long and up to 30 m wide. Inside the hall, a driverless test vehicle is accelerated to speeds of up to 115 km/h fully automatically and then braked to a standstill by a braking robot on various standardized road surfaces that can be exchanged with the aid of hydraulics.

From the outset, the test engineers at the Contidrom have defined standards that are applied in Continental’s tire testing activities around the world, enabling findings to be uniformly interpreted and communicated within the company. Over the years they have repeatedly come up with new and pioneering test procedures. Back in the mid-1970s for example, a driverless Type /8 Mercedes put in endless laps of the oval while completing a variety of tests. Like today, however, these automated tests were no replacement for the personal impressions of a test driver. Many tests, including handling on the ragged edge, wet handling, steering properties and comfort, still call for the presence of a test driver at the wheel.