Enhancement of the tyre rolling resistance testing machine

Abstract

Rubber tree is an outstanding product in commercial area of Thailand. Tyre is one of the prominent and downstream products as components in the automotive industry with a high production capacity. While tyres are used widely, a regulation for the rolling resistance of tyres has been set up by the European Commission. Therefore, the operators must test their products. By the high costs for the testing before certification, the researchers realize the limitation of the test equipment suffering with the small and medium enterprises that do not have access to check their tyres. This is the weakness of the tyre industry in Thailand. Therefore, the low-cost of tyre rolling resistance testing machine has been built in accordance with the UNECE Regulation No. 117 which is accepted worldwide. As a result, the in-house tyre rolling resistance testing machine is compared with the imported one in terms of production cost. The budget can be reduced up to 50% since the test equipment can be produced with currently technology in the country. Moreover, this is the self-reliance of technological machinery industry. For the working result, it was found that the vibration level of tyre rolling resistance testing machine consented to the standard ISO 10816. Besides, the experimental results of tyre rolling resistance coefficient is compliance with the requirements UNECE Regulation No. 117 Annex 6 and also verified by the international authority (TUV Rheinland Thailand Ltd). It can reduce the limitation in terms of the testing and also support the economic expansion of the production of quality tyres in the country to be accepted in international level.