Engineered surfaces for laboratory tread wear testing of tires

A tread wear apparatus for testing tread wear of a tire, comprising:

• a road wheel;
• a substantially rigid hardened wear surface disposed on the road wheel, the wear surface comprising an adhesive mixed with at least one aggregate and configured for hardening and being imprinted with a cast of a road surface on which tread wear of the tire is to be tested, wherein the adhesive is coated onto the road wheel and imprinted with the cast of the road surface when the adhesive is unhardened, the substantially rigid hardened wear surface adapted for emulating one or more surface roughness characteristics of the road surface;
• and
• at least one test wheel configured for having the tire mounted thereon and for being brought into contact with the wear surface of the road wheel for testing the tread wear.

A method of analyzing tread wear of a tire comprising:

• bringing a tire having a tread into contact with a tread wear testing apparatus for testing wear of the tread, the tread wear testing apparatus comprising a road wheel having a substantially rigid hardened wear surface disposed on the road wheel, the wear surface comprising an adhesive mixed with at least one aggregate and configured for hardening and being imprinted with a cast of a road surface on which tread wear of the tire is to be tested, wherein the adhesive is coated onto the road wheel and imprinted with the cast of the road surface when the adhesive is unhardened, the substantially rigid hardened wear surface adapted for emulating one or more surface roughness characteristics of the road surface;
• applying forces to the tire via the tread wear testing apparatus to simulate a vehicle load;
• and
• generating tread wear test data for the tire for analyzing the tread wear.