Citroen and Pirelli Maintain Races Together
Pirelli, Italian tire-making company, has recently signed up a three-year contract for exclusive tire delivery to serve Citroen Racing Trophy (CRT) races that will take part in ten countries in 2011.
All Citroen mono-driving racing car can participate in CRT. It is also true about the C2-R2 MAX and the newly-launched DS3 R3, the latter having won five times in its category during its last-year debut.
The cars for CRT will be fitted with select asphalt and gravel Pirelli tires created by the same technologies used for the World Rally Championship (WRC) in the period between 2008 and 2010 when Pirelli was the official supplier of the WRC. Those tires were known by their exceptional durability and great puncture resistance.
Citroen DS R3 will be fitted by 17-inch RX and RE tires for asphalt roads and 15-inch K tires for gravel roads. The same tires will be mounted on R2-series cars, but asphalt tires will measure 16 inches in diameter.
The CRT is to be held in ten countries this year, namely Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Rumania, Switzerland and Great Britain. The competition is organized in such a way so as to allow racers to take part in several competitions for there will be more than one hundred different races. The races will be held in cooperation with the Rallye Torrie in Portugal and the Rallye Sunkeeper in Great Britain.
Paul Hembery, Pirelli autosport manager, said that the company is glad to take this privilege again and resume the cooperation. They are especially glad that their tires will be used by young talents in one of the most important international races in Europe.
Tire Makers Should Invent Their Quartz
James Rippy, ex vice-president of the Continental company in North America, has given his opinion on innovations in tire-making industry. He maintains that tire-makers need to invent something completely new now for everything what’s being done now is just a slight alternation of already existing things.
Mr Rippy says that the needed breakthrough is as important as it was with the invention of quartz in watch-making industry. Back in time, the Swiss thought that watches should be made with the help of pinion gears and springs, but later on they understood that there was no need to improve the existing mechanism. Quartz watches were invented, which was much better.
The last important breakthrough in tire-making industry took place fifty years ago. It was the invention of radial tires that gradually replaced diagonal ones. The new tires delivered a considerably longer life span in comparison with the latter and offered smoother running, better handling, a more durable construction, etc.
After that there happened nothing more substantial than the transition from diagonal to radial tires. There followed only slight improvements, but not innovations. Run-Flat technology was invented, silica was added to compounds, tread pictures were enhanced towards better hydroplaning resistance, green eco tires with low rolling resistance appeared, but these are just alterations, just marketing, just a new way the company’s resort to in order to advertize their tires in a more attractive manner.
Now what, asks Mr Rippy. Somebody must do the first step towards the real improvement, the real revolution. For instance, who said that tires should be made of rubber compounds? Some companies have already tried it and made tires from polyurethane. Hybrid cars are also perfect examples of the real progress. The problem is that there should be always people who would insist on their point of view and wouldn’t be afraid to take responsibility to place science above money matters.
James Rippy was vice-president of North American Continental in the period between 1974 and 2000. He has been working in the tire-making industry for forty years, during which he gained a profound experience in new tire development, took part in numerous scientific projects and cooperated with such automotive manufacturers as GM, Chrysler, Ford and Toyota.
Studded Tires Negatively Affect Human Immune System
It’s a well-known fact that studded tires cause damage to asphalted roads but the Swiss has recently found out that asphalt elements in the air might be the reason of a number of inflammatory processes in human macrophage cells.
Macrophage cells guard our immune system by actively capturing and neutralizing extraneous substances that try to get into our body through different channels including breathing passages.
The research was conducted by a group of Swiss specialists in hygiene and ecological medicine under the leadership of Anders G. Ljungman. In his article Mr. Ljungman provided a detailed description of how the macrophages behave during the contact with asphalt microelements. He also maintains that their research can help avoid negative consequences of the use of studded tire in future as well as allows for better understanding of a causal relationship between microelements in the air and the origin of cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases.
During the research white blood cells and lung microphages were exposed to the influence of asphalt and granite microelements measuring 3-4 mcm in diameter. The latter were generated by a special machine that imitates driving situations on the road. The changes in cells were studied by electrophoresis and mass-spectrometry after eighteen hours of exposure.
Japanese Create Nano Rubber
Japanese scientists have recently created a new type of carbon-based rubber that ensures extremely cold temperatures. The new high-quality rubber can be used in different spheres of human life like footwear, automotive and tire-making industries and so on. It is peculiar by its unique features previously unseen with other materials, says Ming Xu, a scientist from the National Institute of Progressive Industrial Science.
The new rubber includes carbonic nano tubes in its structure and belongs to viscoelastic materials. It can be pressed, twisted, rolled, stretched or bent; still it always retains its initial shape. It performs just the same way as other traditional materials in usual temperature conditions. But if you freeze the latter or overheat them – which was actually done by the Japanese during the research – they would respectively break up or melt.
Don’t be afraid of it with the new nano rubber – it resists really extreme working environment. It is still usable at a temperature of 1000 degrees Centigrade above zero, the temperature when aluminum melts and steel becomes softer. The same is true for very cold temperatures. Such wide range of temperatures means that it can be used not only on automotive plants but is even suitable for making spaceships.
If included into the structure of cloth it would eliminate the necessity of ironing as clothes would be always as if ironed a minute ago. All you have to do is to straight your dress or shirt and cloth fibers in it would take their original shape.
At last, the new rubber is electro conductive thanks to nano tubes in it. If placed on shock absorbers it can accumulate electricity created during rides on irregular road surfaces.
