Abstract

Many tire performances are associated with the tire design, among which maneuverability and tire durability become major ones to be considered. The former performance is determined by the tension‐value distribution along the sidewall carcass, and the latter by the peak strain energy density in the belt edge region. These two mechanical quantities are closely related to the sidewall carcass contour, so that the above‐mentioned two performances could be improved by sidewall contour optimization. Unfortunately, however, this kind of multi‐objective optimization requires interactive methods, for which the designer's decision‐making is involved, owing to the existence of multi‐peaks. In this study, we basically apply the satisficing trade‐off method (STOM), but we intend to systemize it more by introducing aspiration‐level indicators that control the entire optimization process. Through numerical experiment, we confirm that the proposed refined STOM leads systematically and efficiently to a nearly optimum sidewall contour.