124 Tyre Asia April/May 2018
Advertisers’ Index
Altracon 41
Asian Powertrain Conference 53
Asia Rubber Expo 56
Asia Rubber Tech Expo 76
Asian Retread Conference 2018 37
Asian Tyre & Rubber Conference 2019 77
Auropol 45
Autoparts Asia 122
Bainite 27
Balkrishna Tyres 3
Black Donuts 49
CIMCORP 1
Citexpo 52
Eldan Reclycling 36
Eversafe 22
Farroad 17
Hansung Sysco (Afache & Areca) 10
HF TireTech Group Back Cover
HF Mixing 15
Intires 33
IRMRA 48
IRE 2019 80
Konstrukta 19
Kwik Patch Limited 26
L&T 32
M.I.G Srl 8
MRL 7
Multistrada Back Inside
Nynas 23
Pukharaj 44
Rubber Asia 98
Rubber Tech China 85
Rubber Tech Series 91
Safe Run 6
Salvadori 31
Schill + Seilacher “Struktol” Front Inside
Smart Control 13
TREA 30
Tyre Asia 90
Tyre Testing Supplement 111
Tire Industry Research 99
Truck And Trailer Expo 84
Tyre Asia 10th Anniversary 81
Tire Cologne 57
Vipo A.S 19
VMI 2
World Rubber Summit 40Continued from page 45
Continued from page 81
Future Perfect
An overview on innovation in tyre
There are two prerequisites for
electric drivetrains to be broadly
implemented: the battery cost needs
to go down significantly and the
driving autonomy needs to go up (to
tackle range anxiety). Today, fossil
fuel based drivelines are replaced
more and more by hybrid and fully
electric ones, as more and more
governments are encouraging them
for environmental reasons/climate
goals. however, the question remains
if the transition goes fast enough and
therefore hydrogen fuel cells (hFc)
are likely to play a major role in the
future. I expect hFc technology
to mature by 2020-2025. At that
moment, it is likely that the final
conversion of fossil fuel is done by
hFc, making hybrid and fully electric
drivetrains less interesting. Traditional
oil companies will need to make the
switch so that there is a realistic
consumer alternative by 2040.
however, we need to understand
that in the equation between the
environment and the economy, the
price is always decisive. So if we want
to stimulate the take-up of this new
technologies, we need to incentivize
both the industry and the consumer –
financially and concretely, for example
by allowing electric vehicles to use
bus lanes. And that is where there is a
concrete role for the government.
What are the specific
manufacturing innovations
that you think would be
realized into practical
projects by 2020?In general, we need more innovations.
Manufacturing is nowadays perceived
as a cost. But in order to produce
better, faster, cheaper and on demand
(customization), we need to innovate.
The optimal production environment
anticipates on those needs and can
adapt to them; it is an agile production
environment.
Automation plays an important part.
First of all, those viable environments
need digital instructions. This allows
workers to pick up new directions
better and faster. Secondly, there
is a need for humans and robots
collaborate. The type of collaboration
and the definition of each role are
driven by the product to be made, as
the economy becomes the driver of
the final set-up. humans are strong
and flexible, able to constantly change
operations, while robots are good at
repetitive operations. Production runs
are likely to be lower in size. one-
piece-production can be realized at
the cost of series production.humans in an agile production
environment require a change in the
workforce. For example, humans will
no longer do the heavy lifting. They
will programme and supervise. We will
see a shift from execution/operational
tasks to supervision/more intellectual
tasks.Another major development is highly
dispersible silica. Its usage together
with silanes and high vinyl S-SBR
has met all critical magic triangle
requirements like good dry and wet
traction, reduction in tread wear, and
low rolling resistance.
Functionalized filler is a new category
of fillers in which surface chemistry
of the filler is changed for better
polymer–filler interaction. This is a
suitable way to improve the degree
of reinforcement and polymer–filler
interaction of rubber by providing
functionality to the filler surface,
which is stable at normal mixing
temperature but can react with the
rubber matrix during vulcanization.
This leads to grafting of filler particles
on the rubber matrix with great
improvement of physical properties.
This can be achieved through
chemical surface modification of the
filler.Process oil
concern about toxicity of highly
aromatic oil has led to the usage of
nontoxic type of extender oil. Toxic
highly aromatic oil is replaced by
treated distilled aromatic extract
(TDAe), residual aromatic extract
(RAe), hydrogenated naphthenic oil
(hnAP), and mild extraction solvents
(MeS). even low molecular weight
polymer is a potential candidate
and when uses as process aid will
co- cured along with polymer during
vulcanization and leads to better
properties.(Third part of this series will
appear June-July issue)