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From pneumatic tyres to self-healing and conc ept tyr e s , innovat ions in tyr e de s igns keep the industry on track for growth, says Angelica Buan in this report.
Growth for the tyre sector
Mobility is no longer a millennial buzzword but a reality in economies where urbanisation is rapidly increasing. Upward trajectory of automotive sales continue amid economic slowdown in mature markets like China, the US and Europe.
This uptrend influences the market performance of the global tyre industry, which is expected to hit the value of nearly US$250 billion by 2019, says management consulting firm Lucintel in its market report.
It attributes the growth to high demand for green tyres and tyre radialisation as well as increasing sales of commercial and passenger vehicles. It also mentions that technological innovations and increasing factory automation will be factoring in the uptick of the global automotive tyre industry in the coming years, adding that emerging economies, especially in Asia, such as India, Thailand, and Vietnam, will be leading the demand for tyres.
By 2020, global market potential for tyres would jack up to 2.5 billion units, according to a 2014 global tyres market report by Global Industry Analysts (GIA), and it will be driven by rising automobile production in developing markets and expansion of commercial vehicle fleets, it says. It finds that the Asia Pacific region has exhibited the fastest growth at 6.4% CAGR from the 2014-2018 projection period.
Regulatory constraints, one of the major influences in tyre sales and demand, favours high technology products, which gives the edge to major tyre manufacturers like Goodyear, Bridgestone, Continental and Pirelli, to name a few, says GIA.
The advent of pneumatic tyres
I t all started in 1845 when the pneumatic or air-filled tyre, which works by air within the tyre absorbing the shocks of the road, was invented and patented by RW Thomson. Scottish Thomson’s design used a number of thin inflated tubes inside a leather cover. This meant that it would take more than one puncture before the tyre deflated. However, despite this new breakthrough in tyres, the old solid rubber variety was still favoured by the public, leaving the pneumatic tyre out in the wilderness.
It wasn’t until 1888 that John Boyd Dunlop reinvented the pneumatic tyre whilst trying to improve his son’s bicycle. Dunlop’s tyre, like Thomson’s, wasn’t popular until a race in Belfast, Ireland, was won by a rider using his tyres. With that victory, people began to take notice of the pneumatic tyre.
Dunlop’s development of the pneumatic tyre arrived at a crucial time in the development of road transportation. Commercial production began in 1890 in Belfast. Dunlop partnered with William Du Cros to form a company that would later become the Dunlop Rubber Company.
In 1895, the pneumatic tyre was first used on automobiles, by Andre and Edouard Michelin. It was also around this time that legislation was put into effect that discouraged the use of solid rubber tyres. Thus, companies sprang up to meet the new demand for the new tyres and the age of the pneumatic tyre was started.
Tyres remained fundamentally unchanged throughout the 1920s and 1930s until French tyre maker Michelin introduced steel-belted radial tyres in 1948. This new type of pneumatic tyre meant that they would have a longer life thanks to ply cords that radiate from a 90 degree angle from the wheel rim. It also meant that the tyre had less rolling resistance – increasing the mileage of a vehicle. One drawback was that these tyres required a different suspension system on the vehicle.
Tyres can now heal themselves
Rubber tyres that are filled with air are light and durable, but come with a significant weakness: punctures when hit by sharp things. Punctured tyres become flat tyres, and then that’s a one way ticket to the recycling heap.
Invented by Charles Goodyear, chemical crosslinking of rubbers by sulpur vulcanisation is the only method by which modern automobile tyres are manufactured. The process involves adding sulphur and other compounds to rubber. The process forms bonds within the material, but the bonds can’t be repaired once the tyres are punctured.
Researchers are finding new ways to make tyres to bypass the vulcanisation process altogether. A team of scientists from Leibniz Institute for Polymer Research in Germany, the Tampere University of Technology, Finland, and the Dresden University of Technology, Germany, found that by adding a carbon/nitrogen (instead of sulphur) produces a similar bond, but one that can heal itself over time. This new method involves “converting commercially available and widely used bromobutyl rubber into a highly elastic material with extraordinary self-healing properties without using conventional cross-linking or vulcanising agents.”
In an experiment conducted by the researchers, a cut in the rubber healed itself at room temperature and heat, and especially when applied in the first 10 minutes after the tear, sped up the process. “After eight days, the rubber can withstand pressures of more than 750 psi, which is about 20 times the normal amount of pressure on a tyre,” say the researchers.
The study on the process was published last year in American Chemical Society’s Applied Materials & Interfaces journal. With this new discovery, given a few years, time will be able to heal all wounds, including tyre puncture wounds!
Dandelions and guayule, alternative materials
The rubber tree, or Hevea Brasiliensis, is normally found in Asia but scientists have now discovered alternative sources of rubber that can be found in western continents, which are dandelions and desert shrubs.
Scientists have been studying dandelion rubber for a couple of years. Last year, Continental Tires produced its first tyres made entirely of the material.
Continental presented the first test tyres in a limited series made from Taraxagum, which is the botanical name for the Russian dandelion. Its WinterContact TS 850 P features tread made entirely of natural rubber from dandelion roots. The company says this is in line with its long-term goal of making tyre production more sustainable and less dependent on traditional raw materials.
“After several years of intensive development work together with the Fraunhofer Institute, we are excited to be taking the first dandelion tyres onto the road,” said Nikolai Setzer, Member of the Executive Board of Continental responsible for the tyre division. “To get the most meaningful test results from the crop yield produced by our research project to date, we decided to build car winter tyres, as they contain a particularly high proportion of natural rubber. We are continuing to pursue the goal of developing tyres based on dandelion rubber for readiness for series production within the next five to ten years,” added Setzer.
Meanwhile, Japanese tyre maker Bridgestone Corporation has made a similar development using a different plant, a desert shrub called the guayule plant.
Guayule grows in the Southwestern US and Mexico, and the natural rubber made from guayule is a plantderived biomaterial similar to the natural rubber harvested from the Hevea Brasiliensis rubber tree.
As guayule grows in arid regions, as opposed to the tropical regions where the Hevea Brasiliensis rubber tree is found, the further development of guayule rubber is anticipated to contribute to the diversification of natural rubber sources.
Bridgestone built passenger tyres with 100% of its natural rubber-containing components derived from guayule at the Bridgestone Technical Centre in Japan. The tyres are particularly unique because they were constructed using the company’s guayule natural rubber cultivated at its Biorubber Process Research Centre (BPRC) in Mesa, Arizona, US.
Bridgestone built similar passenger tyres at its operations in Rome, Italy, last year. In those tyres, all of the major natural rubber components, including the tread, sidewall and bead filler, were replaced with natural rubber extracted from guayule grown and harvested by Bridgestone.
Reinventing the wheel with spherical tyre
Since their invention, tyres have taken the same shape. The flat round shape has worked since the first wheel was rolled out. A change of shape may be a true “reinvention” of the wheel.
With self-driving vehicles inching ever closer to reality, there are more than a few autonomous vehicle designs floating around.
Thus, US tyre maker Goodyear released a spherical tyre at the 86th Geneva International Motor Show. The ambitious wheel design offers a glimpse of what driving in the near future might look like. Doing away with the conventional wheel and axle setup, Goodyear envisages cars being carried by four spherical tyres, which can swivel their tread in 360 degrees to help the vehicle move in ways that today’s cars never could.
The future-oriented tyre is dubbed Eagle-360 and allows the tyre to move in all directions, coping with space limitations such as tight turns, parking lots, or city streets. In theory, the tyre could also provide a smoother ride, enabling the car to move sideways in instances like overtaking or lane changes, without requiring the nose of the vehicle to turn.
The spherical tyre is linked to the car by magnetic force so it can rotate on any axis in any direction. Embedded sensors further increase safety by communicating road and weather conditions to the vehicle control system and other nearby cars, while tread and tyre pressure monitoring technology regulate even wear of the 360-degree tyre to extend mileage.
Inspired by nature, the 3D printed tread mimics the pattern of brain coral and behaves like a natural sponge: stiffening in dry conditions and softening when wet to deliver excellent driving performance and aquaplaning resistance, says Goodyear.
One of the most impressive features is the way these spherical tyres could help cars navigate in cramped spaces. Rather than being required to undergo a series of three-part-turns and back-and-forth to get into a tight parking space, spherical wheels that can move in any direction could let a car just glide into any available spot without changing the orientation of the vehicle.
“By steadily reducing the driver interaction and intervention in self-driving vehicles, tyres will play an even more important role as the primary link to the road,” said Joseph Zekoski, Goodyear’s Senior Vice- President.
He adds that Goodyear’s concept tyres play a dual role in the future, “both as creative platforms to push the boundaries of conventional thinking and test beds for next-generation technologies.”
Thus, new tyre designs are being rolled out to satisfy consumer demands for tyre efficiency, durability and competitive pricing. Meanwhile, fuel efficiency, the use of biobased materials, or incorporation of recycled rubber, to cite a few standards, are clinching popularity and sales.