Thursday, 17 March 2016
Continental Tyres
On a wet and misty October evening, over 40 members and guests joined the IAEA Yorkshire Region for an informative and highly entertaining presentation from Steve Howat, general manager technical services at Continental Tyres.
Steve started his career in the tyre industry with Uniroyal at their factory at Newbridge, Scotland in 1987. He left in 2004 to join Bridgestone working in Italy and Belgium, before returning to Continental in 2012. Steve gave a background of Continental, who are firmly established as a Fortune 500 company – one of the biggest 500 companies in the world and significantly bigger than their rivals at Bridgestone or Michelin, and bigger even than McDonalds.
Steve then went on to give an overview of the history of the pneumatic tyre, from the initial basic idea of R W Thomson, patented in 1846, through to the modern and highly complex tyres available today.
The presentation then moved on to the rigorous research and development that goes into creating a modern tyre, including a fascinating video showing the high tech testing facility at the ‘Contidrom’ near Hanover, which has a 2.8km banked test track, permitting a maximum speed in excess of 250km/h. The video focused on the Automated Indoor Braking Analyser (AIBA), which allows testing of braking characteristics of tyres in a whole range of climate controlled conditions, using roller coaster technology to precisely accelerated and brake cars to replicate driving conditions from around the world. This allows testing to be run 24/7, 365 days a year no matter what the weather outside, using technology to ensure consistent repetition and analysis of the results.
Steve then moved on to discuss the individual components that go into the construction of a modern tyre, with examples of each individual component for the group to examine. This included the reason that tyres are mainly black – the carbon black used in their construction increases the tensile strength of the compound but massively increases the wear ability of the tyre – as well giving the tyre their colour.
He also exploded the myth that tyres are simply black and round – advising that whilst most tyres are indeed black, they are actually toroidal in shape – a handy snippet of information should you be challenged on the subject!
Steve also explained the need to keep tyres moving – putting the tyres through the stresses and loads of everyday driving actually ensures that the anti-aging elements in the tyre compound are migrated through the tyre and into the sidewalls. He then moved on to briefly cover the problems with cheaper imported tyres, which often have complex tread patterns which visually appear very similar to premium tyres, but use compounds that give vastly inferior performance. This was graphically demonstrated with a video showing that “copy” tyres needed an additional 14 metres to stop a car in the wet under test conditions.
A lively Q&A session followed, before IAEA Yorkshire Region Chairman Ivan Marriott brought the event to a close with the traditional show of thanks.
Dave Foster
IAEA Yorkshire Region