Two weeks of technical presentations and discussions covering the future of tire design and manufacturing.

Combining process design with intelligent automation solutions become one of the decisive factors in a plant. Two experts explain the challenges and solutions for an efficient production.

Integrated & Intelligent Tire Factory

We all know that tire manufacturing is a discrete type of manufacturing industry where the link between machines and product is filled by people. This imposes tremendous challenges in running the plant efficiently, rather smartly.

To overcome these challenges, Industry 4.0 along with Data Science has to be adapted in a way where machines talk directly to machines and the product tells the machine how to process it.

Each product or batch has to closely resemble the “Golden Batch” maintaining consistent quality. Data Science plays a big role in terms of machine learning for constantly improving the end product.

Speaker:

Vaidehi Gupta, Head of Business, Smart Controls

Process Technology for Smart Mixing Rooms

The integrated tire factory requires a high degree of automation. Consecutive process steps in the production must be intelligently connected with each other. In addition to the controls, software and communication between the subsystems it is a prerequisite that every single process step is robust and designed to provide the desired flexibility. However, in the raw material supply and dosing systems for the mixing room there are still special requirements and limitations due to the varying properties of the powders or liquids in the recipes.

A continuous improvement of these process steps enables a production with better quality and higher output. In this presentation the conveying of carbon black and the dosing of liquid additives will be addressed.

The Overflow Bypass Technology for pneumatic dense phase conveying of carbon black and silica has been proven for more than 2 decades. It was further developed with a new feature that allows the online remote adjustment of the bypass valves along the conveying line. This development makes the base technology smart with the result of a higher flexibility for raw materials and an increased carbon black and silica quality for feeding the rubber mixer.

With the new Liquid Dosing System (LDS) handling of up to 36 liquid additives can be modularly implemented. The LDS provides a highly accurate liquid injection into the mixer and at the same time avoids cross contamination of the different components. 

Speaker:

Hans Schneider, General Manager Process Technology,  Zeppelin Systems