◎ Li Lingxin
| In the past 10 years, the production capacity of OTR forming machine has always been criticized by tire industry. The new O-PRO all-steel radial OTR tire forming machine launched by MESNAC adopts a streamlined forming layout. Its efficiency is 50% higher than that of traditional rotary four-drum forming machine. And its tread winding line can be used for regular two-drum and four-drum models to increase output. It can be described as “one machine with two purposes, creating unlimited benefits”. |
This model focuses on the diversified forming need and efficiency improvement of 20"~25" medium and small sized OTRs. O-PRO’s advanced technology and concept have already been fully verified in the Indian market.
Forming machine is the core equipment that affects the quality of tire. According to the introduction of MESNAC R&D engineers, the O-PRO forming machine has made indepth optimization and improvement on indicators including the repeated positioning accuracy of rubber parts, the degree of compaction between rubber parts, the roundness of green tire, the stability of rubber during extrusion process, etc., and has combined with advanced tire online testing technology to ensure the high quality of tires.
The first is the advanced green tire precise positioning technology. O-PRO adopts forming-winding separation layout to realize related technical breakthrough of winding and forming drum, to ensure green tire will not be deformed during transfer process, and to guarantee the repositioning of tire bead on shaping drum, ensuring the positioning quality of tires. The separate operation of forming and winding greatly reduces the waiting time in each station. The whole tire-making process operates like an assembly line. Combined with the increase of main engine speed and the automatic transfer and forming of green tire, the efficiency of forming machine is greatly improved.
The second is the advanced smart winding technology. Adopting the self-developed algorithm, a mathematical model of extruded rubber strip is established. The winding quality is improved by intelligent calculation and advanced technology. Under the condition that die extrusion temperature < 105℃ , and using high-efficiency Φ150 extruder, extrusion capacity can reach 1100kg/h and extrusion efficiency can be increased by 45% ~50%, which breaks through the bottleneck of OTR forming.
The third is the advanced online tire testing technology. The self-developed measuring device has a measurement error of about ±8mm. By uploading data to upper computer database, the unqualified tires will be reported, which greatly avoids the uncertain factors caused by manual measurement and ensures the quality of each tire. In the current winding process, since the weight before winding cannot be weighed, it is impossible to judge whether it is the winding weight or the rubber part weight that causes the quality problem of tire, and it’s impossible to make timely adjustment. Therefore, there may be mass tire quality problems. O-PRO can achieve real-time weighing after green tire is formed, and the error is within 0.5%.
In addition, due to the complexity and specificity of OTR process, O-PRO adopts a modular design that can provide different solutions according to different needs. In the feeding mode, there are mature customized feeding solutions for special rolling rubber strip, pre-cut tire side wall, pre-cut inner liner, spliced tire tread, etc. While in the special processes, O-PRO provides mounting interface and optional configuration for 0° belt ply winding, cap belt ply winding, tire tread winding, and tire side wall winding.
MESNAC has integrated the advanced concepts and technologies of all-steel truck tire forming machine into OTR forming machine, making O-PRO an integrator of various technologies.
