Case Study: Hankook Tires achieves rapid, cost‑effective NPT development for autonomous mobility with 3D Systems' Figure 4 and SLS solutions

Hankook Develops Award-winning Autonomous Mobility Solution With Figure 4 and Sls Additive Manufacturing Solutions

Hankook Tire & Technology, a Seoul‑based innovator focused on electric and autonomous mobility, needed a faster, more cost‑effective way to iterate multimaterial designs for a nonpneumatic tire (NPT). The team wanted to test biomimetic internal “spoke” matrices, elastomeric treads and moving thermoplastic components, but traditional mold‑and‑machining prototyping was too slow, expensive and incapable of producing the complex hollow, interconnected geometries they envisioned.

Hankook adopted 3D Systems’ Figure 4 additive platform for plastic and elastomer parts and used SLS via partner CEP Tech for thermoplastic/metal components, enabling rapid partial and full‑scale prototypes for safety, noise and durability testing. The result: design cycles shrank to days instead of weeks or months, previously impractical cellular structures were realized and tested, a broad material set met functional needs, and the accelerated development helped deliver the award‑winning HPS‑Cell autonomous mobility platform.

Hankook Tires

Rosa Youn

Design Innovation Studio Manager