Retreading
In spite of weaker volumes in recent times, truck tyre retreading remains an established part of the commercial vehicle tyre market. In contrast and despite obvious environmental advantages, the use of retreading to give car tyres a second life has long been little more than a niche business. But this may change and car tyre retreading may one day re-enter the mainstream.
The association representing the UK’s retreading industry is no longer a member of European retreading trade association BIPAVER. According to the Retread Manufacturers Association (RMA), its departure from BIPAVER on 31 December 2020 is unrelated to Brexit.
As of 24 April, the Marangoni factory in Brazil is 20 years old. Inaugurated in 2001, the plant in Minas Gerais state was instrumental in introducing the Ringtread system to markets throughout Latin America, and as such has fulfilled Marangoni’s mission of providing tyre retreaders and their customers with “a higher quality product” suited to a continent that’s home to one of the world’s largest road networks.
Kraiburg Austria shares that a technical fault caused a fire within the vulcanisation department of its plant in Geretsberg last night, but damage was minor. The retreading materials specialist says the rapid intervention of staff and the fire service limited damage to the immediate area where the fire broke out. Kraiburg stresses that nobody was injured, nor were neighbours or the environment endangered at any point.
Global retreaded tyre sales are expected to reach US$ 8.8 billion in 2021, according to research produced by ESOMAR-certified market research and consulting firm Future Market Insights. According to the new report entitled “Retread Tires Market”, the increase in average miles driven and growing vehicle parc will drive the tyre aftermarket, subsequently fuelling the demand for retreaded tyres.
Bandvulc has launched a new 295/80R22.5 High Load version of its Wastemaster II tyre in order to the needs of its waste management sector customers. Sporting the same features and bespoke compound advantages as the existing Wastemaster II product, the new tyre comes to the market in a 154/149 J load/speed rating.
Kal Tire reports that a full start-up is imminent at its new off-the-road (OTR) tyre recycling facility in Antofagasta, Chile. One of two thermal conversion reactors has completed commissioning and is now undergoing full load tests to process 20,000 kg of tyres, the equivalent of five 63-inch tyres. Commissioning of the facility’s second reactor is nearly complete and full production in sight.
Retreading material supplier Galgo has confirmed that its DGR (Drive Galgo Regional) tread design is now part of the GALGOMR 3PMSF (Three Peak Mountain Snow Flake) accredited product line. As a result, Galgo offers a total of 21 certified 3PMSF treads to its customers as part of the GALGOMR range.
Does the hyper-elasticity of retreaded tyres impact their behavioural quality? Uday Gudsoorkar and Rupa Bindu, two researchers working within the department of mechanical engineering at the Dr DY Patil Institute of Technology in Pune, India sought to answer this question and more by using computer-aided finite element analysis. Their paper “Computer simulation of hyper elastic re-treaded tire rubber with ABAQUS”, which was published in November 2020 in Materials Today: Proceedings used a combination of qualitative and quantitative methodologies to measures forces across the tread belt in a compute simulation. These virtual samples were then compared with laboratory examples. According to the paper, the researchers’ findings are “promising to predict the behaviour of re-treaded tyre rubber” and can be “used to improve the product [retreaded truck tyres] and its utility in small tyre re-treaders, customers and policymakers.”
The commercial relationship between Vipal Rubber and UK retreader Vaculug dates back 12 years, and motorists will see evidence of this partnership on British roads, with two trucks from Vaculug’s fleet now resplendent in Vipal Rubber liveries.
Kingpin Tyres, one of the last remaining passenger car tyre retreaders in the UK, has sold its Kingpin brand name and retread production line to Romanian retreader SC Radburg Center Srl. The transaction took place during the summer of 2020 following several months of negotiations, representatives of new owners Radburg told Tyres & Accessories during a recent interview.
Face-to-face training has been difficult at best and often impossible during the past year, and to accommodate this development Vipal Rubber bolstered its online training programme in 2020. Univipal, the retreading materials supplier’s corporate university and vocational training centre, has responded to an increased demand for virtual learning by developing a series of new resources, intensifying its online training and expanding content.
As of 1 March 2021, the price of the rubber materials that Marangoni Retreading Systems supplies for tyre retreading will increase by 0.20 euros per kilogramme in all European markets. Marangoni says this increase reflects price increases for raw materials used within the sector.
SSH Recycling Ltd has submitted a planning pre-application to Renfrewshire council in a bid to build a tyre devulcanization and processing plant in Linwood, Renfrewshire, Scotland.
The project is what the company describes as “the first of its kind in the UK” and is intended to “solve the entirety of Scotland’s waste tyre problem, using revolutionary new technology to recycle or reuse every component part of the tyre”. However, SSH’s process will support the devulcanisation of treated rubber in order to create synthetic rubber sheet, conveyor belts, shoe soles or rubber mats.
C Technical; Pexels
Galgo
Ivan; Pexels
Radburg Center
SSH Recycling