FTire (Flexible Ring Tire Model) is a full 3D nonlinear in-plane and out-of-plane tire simulation model, applied and supported by vehicle and tire manufacturers all over the world.

FTire is designed for vehicle comfort simulations on road irregularities even with extremely short wave-lengths. At the same time, it can serve as a physically based, highly nonlinear, and dynamic tire model for handling characteristics under the above mentioned excitation conditions. In contrast to other widely used tire models, FTire explains most of the complex tire phenomena on a mechanical basis – and is so much more than just a mathematical approximation of measured characteristics.

The development of the first version of FTire had been suggested and ordered by Honda R&D, Japan. Certain modelization ideas are based upon CTire - another ride comfort tire model, developed for Continental, Germany.

FTire is available in Adams™ since version 11, at present with option name 'MD Adams/Tire FTire'. It is Adams' tire model for all ride comfort and durability applications. At the same time, it can be used for all kinds of handling simulations, and many non-standard applications.

FTire can be used together with a wide variety of other software packages as well. Particularly, there are optimized interfaces available for Simpack™ and MATLAB/Simulink™ (additional infos available here).

FTire can easily be linked to customer-specific vehicle dynamics software; a simple and proven interface is available. COSIN Tire Interface (CTI), designed as a state-of-the-art API, is an alternative to the very limited and old-fashioned capabilities of TYDEX/STI. Lean, logical, easy-to-use, well defined, numerically robust. For C, C++, and Fortran. For Windows™, Linux, and all important UNIX dialects. Featuring plug-in technology. Supplying a wide variety of road model interfaces, including several user-defined models.