Goodyear, Pirelli, Smithers among Tire Technology award winners

HANNOVER, Germany — Goodyear, Pirelli and C. S.p.A, Smithers Rapra, Versalis S.p.A. and MegaRide S.r.l.received accolades this week during the 2018 Tire Technology Expo in Hannover for their achievements in tire technology.

Each company was honored with a Tire Technology International Award for Innovation and Excellence Award by the organizer of the annual Tire Technology Expo.

In addition, Ulf Sandberg, senior research scientist at the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute (VTI), was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award, in 1974, Ulf Sandberg has become one of the world's foremost experts on tire/road noise.

Goodyear's research and development efforts involving the use of soybean oil in tire tread compounds earned the Akron-based tire maker the award in the "Environmental Achievement of the Year" category.

Throughout the last few years, Goodyear has worked with the United Soybean Board to develop soy-based technology that the tire maker claims likely could be a replacement for traditional petroleum oil. The soybean oil-based compound, which Goodyear said could enhance tire performance, is being used in two new tires — the Assurance WeatherReady and the Eagle Enforcer All Weather.

Goodyear notes that soybean oil could improve tire flexibility at low temperatures and could help the rubber remain pliable in cold weather, while enhancing traction in rainy and snowy conditions. The firm also said that the soybean oil enhances manufacturing efficiency because it mixes more easily into rubber compounds and reduces energy consumption.

Pirelli earned Tire Manufacturer of the Year laurels for its high-value product strategy focus, partnerships with 28 academic centers around the world and its leadership in technical innovation.

Marco Spinetto, Pirelli's head of strategic innovation and knowledge management, government regulations and industry standards, called the award "a great honor."

"The tire industry has recognized our company's transformation: a 145-year-old 'start-up' that today is a pure consumer tire firm focused on high value products: in other words, one strategically positioned in the most advanced technical areas," he said in a statement. "And technology is, of course, our key driver."

Mr. Spinetto pointed to the launch of Connesso — a cloud-based tire-monitoring system — as one of the tire maker's achievements last year. Connesso, Pirelli claims, is the only commercially available system that allows a tire to talk to the driver via data analysis, and it does so through the cloud and an app.

Connesso transmits information such as tire pressure, temperature and wear.

"This year we're going to present an evolution of this system, in line with our digital focus," Mr. Spinetto said. "Our main partners, the world's most important car manufacturers, have shown that they really appreciate our approach, and the growing number of premium and prestige homologations proves that."

Smithers Rapra said its approach to tire testing earned it Tire Industry Supplier of the Year honors. The award was given in part for facility upgrades, enhanced capabilities and strengthened partnerships.

Throughout 2017, Smithers Rapra upgraded its analytical chemistry offering and increased tire testing capacity at its China location by 35 percent. In North America, it partnered with tire manufacturers from around the world to expand it Tire and Wheel Test Center in Ravenna, Ohio, and expanded its Smithers Winter Test Center in Brimley, Mich.

"Each of our investments," Smithers Rapra President Nat Leonard said, "was made to offer additional technical depth along every part of the tire development cycle, as well as geographic breadth to our global clients allowing us to provide the highest level of support for their tire development efforts."

Versalis' award, Tire Manufacturing Innovation of the Year, was in recognition of the company's development of BDSPs — butadiene di-block stereoregular polymers — which the company claims will enable the preparation of compounds with improved properties compared with those of today, such as tires usable to a high level in both summer and winter seasons.

These polybutadienes have a structure that displays the properties of a thermoplastic elastomer without undergoing a cross-linking process. The resulting products with non-cross-linked compounds will be more easily recyclable.

MegaRide was recognized for its development of the complementary thermoRIDE and adheRIDE modeling tools, which allow researchers to predict, in real time, the temperature of the different tire layers based on telemetry data-processing techniques.

The model is able to provide local temperature distribution, with particular reference to the deep layers usually unreachable by measurement instruments.

AdheRIDE is a physical-analytical tire grip model that calculates the power dissipated in a polymeric material indented by road asperities, taking into account the adhesive/hysteretic effects, tread wear phenomena, road roughness and the grip-temperature relationship.

Mr. Sandberg was recognized for this work on tire noise, highlighted by the publication in 2002 of the "Tyre/Road Noise Reference Book," which was co-authored with Professor Jerzy Ejsmont at the Technical University of Gdansk.

His work was fundamental in the development of noise measurement methods that are still used today, the awards committee said.

Founded in 2008, the Tire Technology International Awards for Innovation and Excellence reward the innovative thinking and developmental strides of the tire design and manufacturing industry. The magazine's editorial team chooses narrows a list of finalists from nominations and an independent panel of international tire industry experts determine the winners.