Jonathan Darab

operations director

Jonathan Darab is the Operations Director for the Global Center for Automotive Performance Simulation (GCAPS) and the GCAPS Center of Excellence for Tire Testing and Modeling. In this role, he oversees new business development, technical sales, customer relations, new technology development, and customer and internal research projects. Mr. Darab specializes in vehicle dynamics, tire testing and modeling, dynamic testing, and simulations. He has over 20 years of vehicle development experience, having worked at General Motors before his current role at GCAPS. Mr. Darab has a BSc in Mechanical Engineering and an MSc in Global Vehicle Integration and holds 4 patents in tires and suspensions.

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Presentation

Flat-Trac testing with a realistic surface

As virtual engineering accelerates in the automotive industry, engineers generally have to decide between testing indoors on sandpaper, or outdoors on real asphalt. Both methods have distinct advantages and disadvantages. To utilize the advantages of indoor testing, GCAPS has been developing and refining an asphalt-like surface which can be mounted to the LTRe Flat-Trac: Asphaltant. The presentation will show data from various tire test methods and constructions plus recent improvements that make this technology a long-term solution that maximizes the repeatability that indoor testing doubtless brings, but on a truly representative surface – thereby enabling realistic tire and vehicle simulations.