ADVANCE TYRE MANUFACTURING PROCESS

 TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION

2. PARTS OF TYRES

3. TYPES OF TYRES

4. MATERIALS USED IN TYRE

5. TRADITONAL TYRE MANUFACTURING PROCESS

6. ADVANCEMENT IN TYRE MANUFACTURING PROCESS

7. CONCLUSION

8. REFERENCES
INTRODUCTION
A tire is a strong, flexible rubber casing attached to the rim of a wheel.
Tires provide a gripping surface for traction and serve as a cushion for
the wheels of a moving vehicle. Tires are found on automobile s, trucks,
buses, aircraft landing gear, tractors and other farm equipment, industrial
vehicles such as forklifts, and common conveyances such as baby
carriages, shopping carts, wheel chairs, bicycles, and motorcycles.
Tires for most vehicles are pneumatic; air is held under pressure inside
the tire. Until recently, pneumatic tires had an inner tube to hold the air
pressure, but now pneumatic tires are designed to form a pressure seal
with the rim of the wheel.
Scottish inventor Robert Thomson developed the pneumatic tire with
inner tube in 1845, but his design was ahead of its time and attracted
little interest. The pneumatic tire was reinvented in the 1880s by another
Scotsman, John Boyd Dunlop, and became immediately popular with
bicyclists.
Natural rubber is the main raw material used in manufacturing tires,
although synthetic rubber is also used. In order to develop the proper
characteristics of strength, resiliency, and wear-resistance, however, the
rubber must be treated with a variety of chemicals and then heated.
American inventor Charles Goodyear discovered the process of
strengthening rubber, known as vulcanization or curing, by accident in
1839. He had been experimenting with rubber since 1830 but had been
unable to develop a suitable curing process. During an experiment with a
mixture of india rubber and sulfur, Goodyear dropped the mixture on a
hot stove. A chemical reaction took place and, instead of melting, the
rubber-sulfur mixture formed a hard lump. He continued his experiments
until he could treat continuous sheets of rubber.

Today, large, efficient factories staffed with skilled workers produce

more than 250 million new tires a year. Although automation guides
many of the steps in the manufacturing process, skilled workers are still
required to assemble the components of a tire.
PARTS OF TYRE

A. Belts
Rubber-coated layers of steel, fiberglass, rayon, and other materials
located between the tread and plies, crisscrossing at angles, hold the
plies in place. Belts provide resistance to punctures and help treads stay
flat and in contact with the road.

B. Sipes
Sipes are special treads within the tread that improve traction on wet,
dirty, sandy, or snowy road surfaces.

C. Tread

The portion of the tire that comes in contact with the road. The tread is a
thick extruded profile that surrounds the tire carcass. Tread compounds
include additives to impart wear resistance and traction in addition to
environmental resistance. Tread compound development is an exercise
in compromise, as hard compounds have long wear characteristics but
poor traction whereas soft compounds have good traction but poor wear
characteristics.

D. Grooves

The spaces between two adjacent tread ribs are also called tread grooves.
These allow water to escape effectively.

E. Shoulder

The outer edge of the tread that wraps into the sidewall area.

F. Sidewall

The sidewall of the tire protects cord plies and features tire markings and
information such as tire size and type.

G. Inner Liner

This is the innermost layer of a tubeless tire that prevents air from
penetrating the tire. The inner liner is an extruded halobutyl rubber sheet
compounded with additives that result in low air permeability. The inner
liner assures that the tire will hold high-pressure air inside, minimizing
diffusion through the rubber structure.
TYPES OF TYRES
Radial
Carcass ply cords run at 90 degrees to circumferential axis. Carcass
stabilized by steel belts.

Bias
In Diagonal ( Bias ) ply tyre carcass ply chords extend to the beads
diagonally run at an angle of 30 – 45 *with respect to circumferential
axis.
 Advantage of Radial tyre :
 Longer tyre life resulting from lesser tread squirming & shuffling.
 Improved fuel efficiency due to Reduced rolling resistance .
 Better high speed performance: Better dimensional & directional
stability due to reduced edgewise bending.
 Better Vehicle handling due to:
o Minimum distortion in foot print area
o Higher flexibility of sidewalls
o Reduced side slip
 Greater traction , improved braking & cornering stability due to:
o Larger footprint
o More Uniform Pressure Distribution

Tubeless Tyres
What is a tubeless Tyre?

 Tubeless tyres, as the name suggests, are tyres without the tube. The tyre
is built in such a way that it can contain the air by itself. It does not
require a tube within it.
 The tyre and rim assembly form an air container, to “Seal” and
“Contain” the compressed air inside the assembly.
 The tyre has a halo- or chloro-butyl lining on its inside which is airtight.
Together with the airtight joint between the tyre and the wheel, the
membrane forms a container that holds the air for the tyre.
Advantages of Tubeless Tyres Use
Economy
 Since tube is eliminated , friction between tyre & tube is not
experienced, thus lower rolling resistance, improved fuel efficiency, less
vibrations, less heat generation and better comfort.
 Chances of tube getting pinched under the bead while mounting are
eliminated.
 The number of components used in a tyre wheel assembly gets reduced :
o The tube and the flap are both eliminated
 Lower tyre/wheel weight (un-sprung mass) results in better vehicle
handling and therefore longer life.
Safety

 In case a nail or other sharp object penetrate a tubeless tyre, the air loss
is not sudden. The tyre wheel assembly continues to perform its function
for some time before going flat. This ensures and is one of the biggest
advantages of a tubeless tyre.
 If there is a sharp penetration in a tube tyre, the air in the tube starts
leaking suddenly and rapidly in all directions. This causes the wheel
assembly to loose stability thereby resulting in accidents.
 Since there is no tube in tubeless tyre the probable and associated
potential problems such as “Defective Splice”,“Defective Valve
Base”, “Thin Gauge”, “Foreign matter” or “Pin Hole” are
eliminated, ensuring safety of the wheel assembly.
MATERIALS USED IN TYRE

 Natural rubber, or polyisoprene is the basic elastomer used in tire

making.

 Styrene-butadiene co-polymer (SBR) is a synthetic rubber that is

often substituted in part for natural rubber based on the comparative
raw materials cost.

 Polybutadiene is used in combination with other rubbers because of

its low heat-buildup properties.

 Halobutyl rubber is used for the tubeless inner liner compounds,

because of its low air permeability. The halogen atoms provide a
bond with the carcass compounds which are mainly natural rubber.

 Bromobutyl is superior to chlorobutyl, but is more expensive.

 Carbon Black, forms a high percentage of the rubber compound.

This gives reinforcement and abrasion resistance.

 Silica, used together with carbon black in high performance tires, as a

low heat build up reinforcement.
 Sulphur crosslinks the rubber molecules in
the vulcanization process.

 Vulcanizing Accelerators are complex organic compounds that

speed up the vulcanization.

 Activators assist the vulcanization. The main one is zinc oxide.

 Antioxidants and antiozonants prevent sidewall cracking due to the

action of sunlight and ozone.

 Textile fabric reinforces the carcass of the tire.

TRADITIONAL METHOD OF
MANUFACTURING TYRES

Tire plants are traditionally divided into five departments that perform
special operations. These usually act as independent factories within a
factory. Large tire makers may set up independent factories on a single
site, or cluster the factories locally across a region.
 Compounding and mixing
SBR rubber compound to with chemicals formulations

1. SB Rubber 100 k.g.

2. carbon 220 150 k.g.
3. zinc oxide 20.5 k.g.
4. stearic acid 13.5 k.g.
5. accelerator 11.2 k.g.
6. Oil 33.5 k.g.
Al2O3 10.23 kg Compounding is the operation of bringing together all
the ingredients required to mix a batch of rubber compound. Each
component has a different mix of ingredients according to the properties
required for that component.
Mixing is the process of applying mechanical work to the ingredients in
order to blend them into a homogeneous substance. Internal mixers are
often equipped with two counter-rotating rotors in a large housing that
shear the rubber charge along with the additives. The mixing is done in
three or four stages to incorporate the ingredients in the desired order.
The shearing action generates considerable heat, so both rotors and
housing are water-cooled to maintain a temperature low enough to
assure that vulcanization does not begin.
After mixing, the rubber charge is dropped into a chute and fed by an
extruding screw into a roller die. Alternatively, the batch can be dropped
onto an open rubber mill batchoff system. A mill consists of twin
counter-rotating rolls, one serrated, that provide additional mechanical
working to the rubber and produce a thick rubber sheet. The sheet is
pulled off the rollers in the form of a strip. The strip is cooled,
sometimes dusted with a detackifier, and laid down into a pallet bin.
The ideal compound at this point would have a highly uniform material
dispersion; however in practice there is considerable non-uniformity to
the dispersion. This is due to several causes, including hot and cold spots
in the mixer housing and rotors, excessive rotor clearance, rotor wear,
and poorly circulating flow paths. As a result, there can be a little more
carbon black here, and a little less there, along with a few clumps of
carbon black elsewhere, that are not well mixed with the rubber or the
additives.
Mixers are often controlled according to the power integration method,
where the current flow to the mixer motor is measured, and the mixing
terminated upon reaching a specified total amount of mix energy
imparted to the batch.
 Component preparation
Components fall into three classes based on manufacturing process:
calendering, extrusion, and bead building.
The extruder machine consists of a screw and barrel, screw drive,
heaters, and a die. The extruder applies two conditions pressure. The
extruder screw also provides for additional mixing of the compound
through the shearing action of the screw. The compound is pushed
through a die, after which the extruded profile is vulcanized in a
continuous oven, cooled to terminate the vulcanization process, and
either rolled up on a spool or cut to length. Tire treads are often extruded
with four components in a quadraplex extruder, one with four screws
processing four different compounds, usually a base compound, core
compound, tread compound, and wing compound. Extrusion is also used
for sidewall profiles and inner liners.
The calender is a set of multiple large-diameter rolls that squeeze rubber
compound into a thin sheet, usually of the order of 2 metres wide. Fabric
calenders produce an upper and lower rubber sheet with a layer of fabric
in between. Steel calenders do so with steel cords. Calenders are used to
produce body plies and belts. A creel room is a facility that houses
hundreds of fabric or wire spools that are fed into the calender.
Calenders utilize downstream equipment for shearing and splicing
calendered components.

 Tire building
Building is the process of assembling all the components onto a tire
building drum. Tire-building machines (TBM) can be manually operated
or fully automatic. Typical TBM operations include the first-stage
operation, where inner liner, body plies, and sidewalls are wrapped
around the drum, the beads are placed, and the assembly turned up over
the bead. In the second stage operation, the carcass of the tire is inflated,
then the belt package and tread are applied.
All components require splicing. Inner liner and body plies are spliced
with a square-ended overlap. Tread and sidewall are joined with a skived
splice, where the joining ends are bevel-cut. Belts are spliced end to end
with no overlap. Splices that are too heavy or non-symmetrical will
generate defects in force variation, balance, or bulge parameters. Splices
that are too light or open can lead to visual defects and in some cases tire
failure. The final product of the TBM process is called a green tire,
where green refers to the uncured state.
Pirelli Tire developed a special process called MIRS that uses robots to
position and rotate the building drums under stations that apply the
various components, usually via extrusion and strip winding methods.
This permits the equipment to build different tire sizes in consecutive
operations without the need to change tooling or setups. This process is
well suited to small volume production with frequent size changes.
The largest tire makers have internally developed automated tire-
assembly machines in an effort to create competitive advantages in tire
construction precision, high production yield, and reduced labor.
Nevertheless, there is a large base of machine builders who produce tire-
building machines.
  Curing

An opened tire mold being cleaned. The deflated rubber bladder is on

the central post.
Curing is the process of applying pressure to the green tire in a mold in
order to give it its final shape, and applying heat energy to stimulate the
chemical reaction between the rubber and other materials. In this process
the green tire is automatically transferred onto the lower mold bead seat,
a rubber bladder is inserted into the green tire, and the mold closes while
the bladder inflates. As the mold closes and is locked the bladder
pressure increases so as to make the green tire flow into the mold, taking
on the tread pattern and sidewall lettering engraved into the mold. The
bladder is filled with a recirculating heat transfer medium, such as
steam, hot water, or inert gas. Temperatures are in the area of 350
degrees Fahrenheit with pressures around 350 PSI. Passenger tires cure
in approximately 16 minutes. At the end of cure the pressure is bled
down, the mold opened, and the tire stripped out of the mold. The tire
may be placed on a PCI, or post-cure inflator, that will hold the tire fully
inflated while it cools. There are two generic curing press types,
mechanical and hydraulic. Mechanical presses hold the mold closed via
toggle linkages, while hydraulic presses use hydraulic oil as the prime
mover for machine motion, and lock the mold with a breech-lock
mechanism. Hydraulic presses have emerged as the most cost-effective
because the press structure does not have to withstand the mold-opening
pressure and can therefore be relatively lightweight. There are two
generic mold types, two-piece molds and segmental molds.
Large off-road tires are often cured in ovens with cure times
approaching 24 hours.
  Final finish
After the tire has been cured, there are several additional operations. Tire
uniformity measurement is a test where the tire is automatically mounted
on wheel halves, inflated, run against a simulated road surface, and
measured for force variation. Tire balance measurement is a test where
the tire is automatically placed on wheel halves, rotated at a high speed
and measured for imbalance.
Large commercial truck/bus tires, as well as some passenger and light
truck tires, are inspected by X-ray or magnetic induction based
inspection machines, that can penetrate the rubber to analyze the steel
cord structure.
In the final step, tires are inspected by human eyes for numerous visual
defects such as incomplete mold fill, exposed cords, blisters, blemishes,
and others.
ADVANCEMENT IN TYRE
MANUFACTURING

1) Banbury Blending

2) Milling

3) Extruding and Calendering

4) Component Assembly

5) Curing

6) Finishing and Inspection

BANBURY BLENDING
  In this process the natural rubber and synthetic rubber is blended
with some specific chemicals to get the rubber in the used form.
 Specific amount of carbon is added at the initiation of this process.

MILLING

 In this process the shaping of rubber takes place as the rubber sheet
comes out from banbury mixer is not that perfect.
 This process takes place more than 2 or 3 times for the same
rubber lot, just to ensure the regularity of the rubber sheet.

EXTRUDING AND CALENDERING

 Extruding process is a very important process as it converts the

thick and heavy rubber sheets into thin rubber sheets.
 This process is done by several different machines such as Triplex
extruder, Doublex extruder etc. Many of the tyre components are
made by this process such as Tread, inner liner etc.
  Calendering is the process similar to sandwiching, as it sandwich
or calender the thin and sharp steel wires between the two thin
layers of rubber sheet.
 This process produces the steel belt which is required in the radial
car tyres.

COMPONENT ASSEMBLY

 In this stage all the tyre components are assembled together to

make a “ Green Tyre “ with the help of assembling machine.

CURING

 This is the process where the Green Tyre is cured in a Dom shape
machine having mould in its inside part at both upper and lower
end.
  The tyre mounted on a bladder which is inside the Dom and then
the both ends of it are closed and the tyre is cured in the presence
of Dom Steam, High Pressure Steam, Hot Water and Cold Water.

FINISHING AND INSPECTION

 Finishing is to be done as some irregularities are generated on and

around the tyre after the curing process.
 Inspection is the last stage or process of tyre manufacturing which
is very important regarding tyre’s quality. It includes 3 types of
inspection:-
 1. Manual inspection
 2. Weight balancing
 3. X-ray inspection
It is done manually by some skilled workers.
CONCLUSION
Skilled labours are required to handle the machine.
Some specific rules are to be consider before doing the production.
Advancement in tyre manufacturing inproves the cost and improved the
skilled labour and are more helpful than the traditional onne in many
aspects.

REFERENCES
 http://www.madehow.com/Volume-1/Tire.html#ixzz5rH2DKL5Z
 https://www.cartergm.com/parts-of-a-tire/
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tire_manufacturing
 https://www.jktyre.com/knowyourtyre.aspx
 https://www.slideshare.net/mayankverma5688/tyre-manufacturing-process-at-j-k-tyre