News

How Are Tires Made?

posted on 12/14/2018 1:20:26 AM

Usually, for most of us, our trucks just roll on their tires and we don’t really even give them much thought. It’s easy to take them for granted until it’s time to replace them (or until something goes wrong), but did you ever think about how tires are actually made?

The tire-building process is now automated to a great degree, but tire companies still depend a lot on technicians to complete many steps in manufacturing a tire. Here’s a brief, simplified version of the process:

Modern tread formulations incorporate natural latex rubber, synthetic rubber polymers manufacture from crude oil, sulfur, silica, carbon black and natural and synthetic oils. Carbon black is a byproduct of incomplete combustion of crude oil or natural gas. This fine, sooty black powder is essential in tire manufacturing, as it helps disperse heat, protect against UV rays and stabilize the other ingredients of the tire. The ingredients properly proportioned, go into giant hoppers for mixing, where industrial chemists regularly check the batches to ensure consistency.

The batches of mixed rubber is driven through mills, which use rolling cylinders to squeeze the rubber material into thick sheets, which then are used in building specific parts of the tire. Inner plies of the tire, for instance, use layers of rubberized fabric laid on top of each other. The tread material goes from the batch mixer to an extruder, where it’s then formed into sheets, sliced into strips and stored in flat metal cases called “books.” The bead of the tire is a bundle of wire which is formed into a ring on a wire-wrapping machine, then covered with rubber. Sidewall rubber is rolled, then covered with a protective plastic layer.

The materials then go to a tire-building machine, and the racks of beads, books of tread rubber and roll of sidewall rubber are delivered to a technician. The technician then wraps the rubberized internal plies around a collapsible drum, with the plies held together with glue. The beads are then added, and additional plies are shaped with power tools. The tread and sidewalls are glued into place, and the semi-complete “green tire” is removed from the machine.

The green tire is next placed inside a large clamshell-style mold. Inside this mold, an inflatable bladder fills with steam, forming the tread pattern by forcing the tread rubber against the interior of the mold. The tire is heated to 280 degrees by the steam, with the time spent in the mold depending on the design specs of the tire.

After the tire is built, formed and cured, the quality control work begins. Each tire is examined for gross defects like bubbles or voids; it’s inflated and spun on a test wheel, where sensors monitor the tire for trueness or possible flat spots. In every production run, hundreds of tires are picked out for destructive testing…sliced apart to check for internal air pockets, run against metal drums with enough force to simulate driving, or puncture-tested by driving them onto metal studs. Random tires are also subjected to X-rays to search for internal flaws.

Field information is also collected from tire dealers and drivers, and warranty claims are examined to see any patterns of problems in real-world use. At Top Shop Truck Accessories in Palmetto, FL, we hope you found this information interesting. Get a look at your tires…how are they looking?

If it’s time to think about a set of tires for your truck, give us a call and make an appointment!

Categories: Tire 101 | View Count: (54) | Return

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