PRODUCTION PROCESS OF TYRE

In this post, we will discuss about the manufacturing process of tyre components and their assembly to produce the final product. But before going to study how tyre is produced first we need to know about the demand of this product because if we can understand the application and requirement of a particular product then only we will be interested to discuss the every step in production of that product. Let us consider the year 1998-1999 production of tyre.

Bead Ring

Tyre inner rim is called as bead ring which is manufactured separately. The bead rings are manufactured by the process of coating of thick wires along with the mixture of rubber and after that coiling these rings across a template.

 
The Bed rings and woven sheets are combined together and after that tread pattern of tyre is moulded on top. Please note that this is not the end of tyre production line but also it is only gree tyre.

The green tyre will pass through the process of Vulcanization along with the application of pressure and heat in special machines in order to produce the final and finished product that is tyre.

Compounding and Banbury mixing

A Banbury mixer will combine carbon black, rubber stock and other various types of chemical constituents in order to produce a homogeneous rubber material.

The constituents are normally prepared and weighed by the Banbury operator from bulk quantities or provided to the plant in pre-weighed packages. Calculated constituents are placed over conveyor system, & Banbury will be charged in order to start the process of mixing process.

Milling

Shaping process of rubber starts with the milling process. Once Banbury mixing phase completed, rubber is used to place on a drop- mill. Rubber will be shaped in to flat and long strip state by process of milling where rubber will be forced via two set rolls and these rolls used to rotate with different speed in different directions. 

Mill technicians are normally focused on safety points and they used to consider the unsafe points those are associated along with the open operation of the rotating rolls.

In case of older mills, there were normally bars or trip wires and these bar or trip wires might be pulled by mill operator in case if he /she got caught in this machine i.e. mill.

Now these days Mills, along with modern technology, have body- bars normally at approximate level of knee and this body bar will be triggered automatically in case if operator will be caught in mill.

Extruding and calendaring

Calendar operation helps to shape the rubber. There will be approximate four rolls on calendar machine and rubber sheet are forced through these rolls.

The calendaring machine has to perform the following functions

1. Preparation of compound rubber of suitable width and thickness
2. Placing a coat of rubber of very small thickness over the fabric
3. Forcing the rubber in the interstices of fabric with the help of friction

The rubber sheets those are coming as output of calendaring machine will be wounded on drums and this is referred as shells along with fabric- spacers which is referred liners in order to avoid the sticking.

Components assemble and build-up phase

Tyre assembly process is very highly automated process. In the machine of tyre assembly there will be a rotating drum and components are assembled on this rotating drum. Let us understand the basic components of a tyre as mentioned following

1. Plies
2. Beads
3. Side walls
4. Treads

When above mentioned components are assembled then it will be referred as green tyre. There will be a numbers of various operations of repetitive motion type and technicians and workers those are working in this line of production will have to face these operations of repetitive motion type. 

There will be one more important portion of the assembly equipment which is referred as feeding portion. Components normally in heavy rolls are used to place over the feeding portion of the equipment used for components assembly purpose. 

During this operation there will be very precise and challenging job of handling heavy rolls in very limited space. Production executive will have to perform a numbers of identical or similar motions for each assembly.

After completion of assembly operation, green tyre will be sprayed with water-based materials or solvents for keeping green tyre from adhering to curing. Now these days’ tyre manufacturing industries prefer the water based material for spraying over the green tyre.

Curing and Vulcanizing

Green tyre will be placed on the press loading machine or on curing press machine. Steam will be utilised by this press in order to cure or in order to heat the green tyre.

Inspection and Finishing

Before tyres are going to be stored in ware house or going for shipping, it will go for finishing and inspection process.

During the process of finishing process, excess rubber from tyres will be removed. This excess rubber will remains on the tyres during the process of curing mould.

One of the major health problems is that operators and technicians will be exposed to rubber dust while handling a cured tyre. The finishing process of tyre or grinding operations typically produces lot of rubber dust and workers and technicians will have to face these dust.

Once the finishing process will be completed, tyres will go for inspection process where tyres will be inspected with the help of X-ray technique.

Consumer use

Once tyres are manufacture, it will be stored after inspection. During storage there will be some issue that must be considered such as mentioned following

1. Protection against water moisture
2. Protection against heat
3. Protection against sunlight
4. Protection against chemicals
5. Protection against ozone

Before use

Before application of tyre, we must be aware about the characteristics and other properties

of tyre .let us discuss one example to understand the characteristics, nomenclature and properties.

Post-consumer processing (Recycling)

When tyre exceeds its life period or we may say that when tyres are not suitable to use more or tyres are damage in such a way that repairable is not possible, in that situation those tyres will go for process of recycling.

Method of disposal

1. Landfill disposal.
2. Tyres must be shredded because complete tyre will have possibility to trap methane gas.
3. Tyres must be disposed in specified area and should be away from residential areas because it may lead to Mosquitoes, risk of fire and vermin.
4. High power ultra sound recycling will be the best method

Transportation

During the manufacturing of tyre, there will be some transportation phase for example when latex is collected from tree then it must be transported to tank or transferred for air seal containers. When mixing and extruding operation will be completed, then hot gummy compound will be cooled into slabs and then transported for breakdown mills where the rubber will secure the desired shape or form.

Once, tyre will be manufactured then it will be sent for inspection and for storage at specified place with all precaution those we have studied above. Tyre will be sent to worldwide for delivery.

When tyre exceeds its life period or we may say that when tyres are not suitable to use more or tyres are damage in such a way that repairable is not possible, in that situation those tyres will be transported for disposal at specified place and after that it will be sent to recycling unit for further recycling 

Hence we may say that there is lot of transportation during complete cycle of tyre.

Environmental impact

If we consider in details, we will come to know that these tyres are not environmental friendly. Hence, tire industries are intended to recycle the tyres in last few years, but as per Michel Bloch approximate twenty five percent tyres are still not recycled and these rest percentage of tyres lead to release some toxic gases such as butadiene, benzene, styrene, lead  and some other dangerous gases  into the air and we used to breathe.

 “As of 2003, about 290 million tires are discarded in the U.S. every year (roughly   one per person). Nearly 45% of these scrap tires (130 million) are used as "Tire Derived Fuel" (TDF), which involves burning the (usually shredded) tires.” (Energy Justice).

TYRE LIFE CYCLE ANALYSIS

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