Hi Roger – we’ve had a couple of emails about tomorrow but unfortunately I’m not able to attend; likewise one of my colleagues is also unable to attend! 🙁

Have a good day!

Also have you seen the tyre / graphite thread about these part? I thought you may be able to offer some input!

A bit more info in this thread from last year http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?t=108562

I’m sure that there has been others!

TO – we have something else in common

I spent a year early in my education as a polymer processing technician – which included compounding rubber from scratch on a 2 roll mill and a Winkworth. As well as spending part of my degree in polymer science.

Later I spent three years developing high tear strength silicone rubbers including transfer to production – hence my geekiness in this area.

Hi Brian,

Yes more common ground!

Open mill compounding – a practice that I believe has now been outlawed on H & S grounds. Only ever had a few dealings with Winkworth; normal Mixing companies were Farrel; Francis Shaw; Carter Bros etc.

Just checked my archive and found my interview notes on the silane project – I’d forgotten that the chemist I interviewed was later stopped from having his comments attributed to the company – so we went with a “major international tyre compounder in the north-Midlands!”

Lots of interesting stories directly or indirectly connected to aviation from my time in this industry including: an Austrian engineer / inventor who was a child (14 year old) pilot in the Luftwaffe at the end of World War II; and a company blending products in the north-west of the UK that I believe were supplied to the USA as part of the stealth programme!! 😮

:diablo: ….. still hope then!! 😉

In my previous incarnation in the weighing and materials handling sector, the company I worked for was a major supplier of handling equipment for the rubber compounding sector – and supplied many tyre (tire) manufacturers around the world.

I spent many ‘happy’ hours at factories around the UK and Europe; filming, photographing and writing about the company’s various installations in the rubber compounding sector. One of the last technical articles I ‘ghosted’ was for a major tyre manufacturer who was pioneering the use of silane to replace the silica in their low-energy ‘green’ (lower rolling resistance tyres for improved m.p.g.) tyres. The liquid silane presented a whole new set of issues for accurate handling in the mixing room to achieve the same effect as the silica it was being used to replace. I believe this was to help reduce some of the conductivity issues silica was introducing into road tyres – remember the various recalls in the mid-1990s for cars catching fire whilst being filled up with petrol! I’ll take my ‘old-techie’ hat off now as well! 😉

Just to bring back a bit of aviation content, the company I worked for (Chronos Richardson / BTH Chronos) was sold to Zeppelin Systems from Friedrichshafen; they used similar construction techniques derived from airship construction to make aluminium bulk storage silos to hold carbon black and silicas etc. Shame I was made redundant and never got over to Friedrichshafen! 🙁

Also back onto the original question, don’t forget that there is a good deal of metal woven into the various parts of the tyre, which also may aid the static discharge situation – albeit I’m no expert. Without the carbon black, silica, process oils and lots of other specialised chemicals with just raw rubber in a tyre all you would have is a large eraser, that would last very few miles before being worn away.

Perhaps Roger Smith might be able to add something to the discussion!

Not specifically garphite but a compound called carbon black – see details here http://carbon-black.org/what_is.html and here http://carbon-black.org/uses.html

I don’t believe it was used to specifically release static, but more to give structural properties to the rubber compounds used to make the tyres.

In commercial road tyres today – especially ‘low-energy’ tyres, more silica (or silanes) are used, which can increase the levels of static.

Final link for tonight http://www.dunlopaircrafttyres.com/tech_support/aircraft-tyre-technology.aspx