On November 3 in Hangzhou, the “Project on Automatic Building Process Technology and Complete Equipment for All-Steel Radial Tire Bead” jointly developed by China Chemical Guilin Engineering Co., Ltd. (CGEC) and Zhongce Rubber Group Co., Ltd. passed the achievement appraisal organized by the China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation. The appraisal committee believed that the project has researched and developed an automatic building process technology and complete equipment for all-steel radial tire bead with independent intellectual property rights, and the achievement has filled several domestic technical gaps and reached the international advanced level.

With the rapid upgrade of tire production process, the requirements for the quality and stability of tire semi-finished products are also getting higher and higher. The tire bead, as a component within the tire that directly contacts the wheel hub to transmit torque, is an important component in the tire structure. The requirements for endurance, stability, and impact resistance are getting higher and higher, and the quality of tire bead directly affects the safety and stability of tires. In addition, in tire production, the traditional tire bead building section is also one of the production sections requiring the largest number of manual labor. In the case of rising labor costs and difficulties in recruiting, the automation and integration of production equipment are imperative.
The tire bead is usually composed of bead wire ring, bead filler, etc. The quality of the building process for all-steel tire bead has a greater impact on the quality and service life of tire. As the all-steel tire has a large load carrying, and the bead filler features hard rubber compound, poor viscosity, large size, and composition of different rubber compounds, it is very difficult to bond with bead wire ring. At present, the production of all-steel tires by domestic tire enterprises basically adopts the form of scattered layout of various procedure equipment and manual bonding of tire beads with cumbersome tooling and material flow, abundant manual auxiliary procedures, high labor intensity, and low production efficiency.

Shen Jinrong, chairman of Zhongce Rubber Group, said that many issues exist in the traditional production flow for all-steel radial tire bead filler-bead bonding, including complicated production steps, difficult process control, numerous operators, high manufacturing costs, low degree of automation, and so on. As early as 2014, Zhongce proposed the concept of automatic bead wire ring flipping and tire bead composite integration. In 2018, it reached a cooperation consensus with Guilin Engineering Company to successfully develop a vertical bead filler bonding production line; and in 2019, it developed a three-in-one production line for bead wire ring building, automatic heading, and automatic flipping. The project appraised this time is an important result of long-term cooperation and joint research and development between the two parties, marking a major breakthrough in the preparation process and equipment for all-steel radial tire beads.

The creators in chief of CGEC reported the work report and technical research report of the R&D project. The overall goal of the project is to develop a full-automatic building process and complete equipment for all-steel radial tire bead with independent intellectual property rights and a base on the vertical semi-hot bonding process, to change the status quo of the backward production technology of China’s tire manufacturers for all-steel tire beads, to effectively improve the precision, size uniformity, stability, and production efficiency of all-steel tire bead bonding products, to meet the market’s demand for high-performance radial tire production process, to provide support for China’s tire manufacturers to achieve efficient and intelligent manufacturing, and to promote China’s tire industry transformation and upgrade.

The main components of the project are: hexagonal bead wire ring building machine, bead filler online extruding and cooling line, tire bead bonding and building, bead wire ring supply, tire bead unloading logistics, bead wire ring heading, bead wire ring spiral flipping, bead wire ring storage and control system, etc. The specific process is divided into two parts: the vertical semi-hot bonding and building production line for all-steel tire bead, and the three-in-one production line for bead wire ring building, heading, and flipping. These two parts can be integrated together to form a full-automatic building process and complete equipment for all-steel radial tire bead; and they can also be arranged separately to replace the traditional bead production process and equipment when the old factory of tire enterprise is upgraded and rebuilt or the new factory has a small layout.

The appraisal committee believed that the project has four main innovation points. Firstly, it integrates four procedures of bead wire ring winding and building, bead wire heading, flipping/rubber coating, and bead filler bonding, and develops an adjustable bead wire storage tanker and automated logistics systems, realizing the automation and intelligence of bead wire ring supply and loading, tire bead unloading, and tire bead septa stacking with labor costs halved, production efficiency increased by 28%, and product quality significantly improved. Secondly, it develops a new type of full-automatic heading machine and spiral flipping machine for bead wire ring, improving product quality conformity and production efficiency. Thirdly, it develops a double-station switching bonding drum system, mechanical bonding drum with adjustable size, and drum-plate coaxiality, achieving bead filler automatic winding, sealing, turning and building of bonding drum, which is suitable for the production of multiple specifications, meets the demand for the production of multiple specifications and small batches of tire beads, and reduces equipment investment. Fourthly, it successfully develops a bead filler winding and servo feeding device and cutting mechanism, which can quickly change the cutting angle and automatically correct the deviation of rubber compound during the winding process of bonding drum.

It is learnt that the achievement has been successfully applied to many tire enterprises such as Zhongce Rubber Hangzhou Chaoyang Rubber Co., Ltd. and Prinx Chengshan. In 2020, despite the impact of COVID-19, CGEC’s orders on full-automatic building process technology and complete equipment for all-steel radial tire bead are still showing a good trend, with a total of 12 units (sets) sold, and a contract value of more than RMB 100 Million Yuan. It has remarkable economic benefits, and broad application prospect.