Japanese Create Nano Rubber
Posted on January 21, 2011
Filed Under Goodyear Tires, Interesting | Leave a Comment
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.
Yokohama Includes Orange Peel Oil into Its Tires
Posted on January 9, 2011
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Such notion as eco-friendliness has already won a firm position in minds of automotive manufacturers as well as tire-making companies. Moreover, the race for eco-friendliness includes not only the development of hybrid car engines, but the improvement of all car parts to reduce harm inflicted on the environment.
Yokohama does its best to advance in this field and launches the dB Super E-spec tire to include oil derived from orange peels into the structure of its rubber compound. Now it is considered the most eco-friendly tire available on the market.
The new tire is made of natural rubber coupled with orange peel oil and features only 20 per cent of petrochemical products. Such reduction of oil products necessary for tire production helps minimize oil use without compromising on tire technical and operational features.
Dan King, Yokohama vice-president, maintains that the new tire helps save on fuel as well thanks to its low rolling resistance that was reduced by 20 per cent in comparison with similar tire. It is ensured by the Advanced Inner Liner technology that minimizes tire weight while ensuring stable air pressure for a long time.
Yokohama specialists point to the fact that each unused liter of oil cuts CO2 emissions by 2 kilograms. At the same time, natural materials the dB Super E-spec tire is made from means that the tire can be recycled after use. Meanwhile, orange peel oil makes the tire get warm quicker during cornering and braking operations, which enhances traction and adds to your safety on the road.
Winter Tire Tests
Posted on December 29, 2010
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When choosing tires people are guided by different things including their own needs, experience, friends’ advice, family budget, internet reviews and, at last, tests results. You can find lots of opinions about tire comparative tests. There as well exists an opinion that such tests are useless as they are subjective. Testers are people, so they can get mistaken as to err is human. They as well have their own preferences, which cannot but affect test results.
But in reality, a comprehensive tire test is nothing but a scientific research, which results are processed and calculated with the help of up-to-date methods of mathematical statistics. At the same time, researches aren’t able to add subjective opinions while the influence of such extraneous weather factors as temperature, humidity and atmospheric pressure is minimized.
The influence of the testing environment is excluded with the help of a special car fitted with an etalon tire set. This car takes part in every research. So if at the end of a testing day the weather becomes warmer and melting ice results in a longer braking distance of this car, it becomes possible to speak about the influence of the altered temperature and, moreover, to calculate the numbers. Further on, you take this coefficient into consideration when assessing the final results.
Statistical convergence of the results, in its turn, is achieved by multiple repetitions of one and the same tests with one and the same tire sets. Moreover, testing pilots put the tires objective marks as they don’t know the names of the tire, but only their ordinal numbers.
In conclusion it should be mentioned that tire tests are serious event, so when choosing the fitting for your car it is worth paying attention to the results comparative tests published in papers or internet sites.
Michelin Active Wheel Futuristic Technology
Posted on December 19, 2010
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Michelin Active Wheel is an innovative wheel making technology that indicates a new era of automotive production. It is the wheel featuring a miniature engine and electronic suspension system nested into it, which helps achieve a highest safety level, a highest efficiency level while opening the way to eco-friendly auto transport.
The wheel was worked out two years ago and was unveiled with the new Venturi Volage car. The vehicle has an innovative construction that doesn’t restrict component arrangement; at the same time, its electric engine provides for eco-friendliness while ensuring excellent speeding up performance. Another vehicle to take this wheel was the WILL created by Heuliez, Michelin and Orange companies.
The essence of Michelin technological breakthrough is the wheel’s own compact driving electric engine with 30-Watt power, disk brake and an integrated suspension system. The technology may be used either for all the four wheels or for two of them (e.g. for a front pair of wheels). Hence, the Active Wheel technology maintains both 4WD and 2WD vehicle production.
Michelin Active Wheel technology uses electric energy derived from ionic-lithium battery or condenser, which allows eliminating environmental pollution and achieving comfortable running. The system doesn’t either produce greenhouse gases or create noise pollution.
The Active wheel technology changes the usual image of a transport vehicle. Now, since all the driving components are integrated in the wheel, car design can be altered and improved freely.
Michelin new wheel outstrips the time for now, but natural resources have already started to exhaust, that’s why it’s high time to think about alternative technologies and adapt already existing electric cars to in-city conditions. This was one of the first steps in this direction.
