GM tyre/wheel specialist to keynote Tire Society event

ERJ staff report (TB)

Fairlawn, Ohio -- Terrence Connolly, head of General Motors Co.'s suspension, chassis structure and fastening engineering groups, will keynote the 30th annual meeting and conference of the Tire Society, being held Sept. 13-14 in Akron.

Connolly's address, “Does Re-Inventing the Automobile Include Re-Inventing the Tyre?” kicks off the two-day conference at 8:15 a.m. on the 13th. Connolly, a 30-plus-year GM veteran, has been in his current position since June 2011. Prior to that he was director of GM's tyre/wheel systems for nearly three years.

This year's Tire Society meeting, at the Hilton Hotel Akron in Fairlawn, Ohio, features 28 technical and plenary presentations over two days. Among the themes being addressed are: friction and wear; rolling resistance; modeling and simulation; and testing. This year's meeting includes eight papers from students at universities in China, Japan, Europe and the US

During the event, the Tire Society will recognise the late Takashi Akasaka, of Chuo University, Chuo, Japan, with its Distinguished Achievement Award. Akasaka was a pioneer in tyre mechanics modeling and was considered one of the world's foremost experts on the properties of cord-rubber composites, the Tire Society said.

The meeting also will feature a plenary lecture on the “State of Research on Smooth, Safe and Quiet Pavements in the US” by Steve Karamihas of University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute and a dinner banquet presentation on “Future Space Exploration Technology Challenges” by Donald Palac of NASA Glenn Research Center.

The registration fee for Tire Society members is $200, which includes the luncheon and dinner banquets. For non-members, the fee is $250. Retirees can register for $100 and full-time students can register for $50.

From Tire Business (A Crain publication)

From Tire Society home page