Board Member Highlight: Pat Majors

Pat Majors sits on the SIMCenter’s External Advisory Board, the group of volunteers from various industries that meets bi-annually to help guide SIMCenter initiatives. He is currently Senior Manager of Research and Predictive Technology at Cooper Tire and Rubber Company, the world’s 13th largest tire company. In his role, Majors specializes in finite element application, new experiment conception and industrialization, constitutive models for solids, project portfolio design, and team leadership. He also manages two groups in predictive technology and research. Majors’ unique expertise has made him a valuable contributor to EAB activities.

Majors cites his early love of cars as the driving force that led him to the automotive industry. “I grew up liking cars. I had a favorite tire by around the age of 12,” he said. His initial involvement with Ohio State was through the Center for Automotive Research, which later led him to join the SIMCenter EAB. Majors now enjoys taking part in EAB discussions and sharing ideas based on his own experiences. With a passion for the SIMCenter’s education initiatives, Majors has provided valuable input to the Finite Element Principles development program and has even utilized the program in his professional world by having his team members complete the first course, Foundations in Finite Element Principles.   

Majors believes simulation is vital to remaining competitive in the automotive tire manufacturing industry. “It’s exceptionally important. If we did not simulate, to reduce product development cycle time, we could not be competitive,” he said. He believes the industry’s future

will include the use of hybrid finite element and data-based predictions to create virtual tire submissions for OEMs, digital twins in factories, and mining and analytics of physical and virtual data.