Compared to traditional calendering and off-line processing equipment, the calenderless Steelastic Body Ply System provides a variety of benefits. Read on to find out about the 5 top benefits of Steelastic’s extruded steel and textile body ply systems.
Benefit 1: Flexible changeovers to produce a variety of product SKUs
When using calenders for tire component preparation, changeovers can take hours and hours. This inflexibility, especially in a market with growing demand for many different SKUs, is becoming more and more of a problem. With Steelastic’s Body Ply System, changeovers can take as little as 20 minutes, meaning operators can produce multiple SKUs in a single shift with less downtime in production.
Benefit 2: It’s a one-stop process from extrusion to windup
Because extrusion, cutting, splicing, gum edging and windup happen in a single process, Steelastic’s calenderless body ply machine eliminates the need to move and store calendered material between the calender and the offline processing equipment. These efficiency gains, and elimination of work in progress, result in significant cost savings over time.
Benefit 3: Significantly smaller footprint and capital investment
It’s important to consider your total cost of ownership when deciding between calendered and calenderless machinery. Steelastic’s calenderless production process has a modular design and overall smaller footprint than traditional calendering and offline processing systems. With Steelastic’s Body Ply System, you can make better use of your warehousing space and reduce the overall investment in your tire manufacturing equipment.
Benefit 4: Performs as well or better than calendered materials
Since the Steelastic Body Ply System was first introduced in 2017, we have worked with leading tire manufactures to do exhaustive testing of extruded textile and steel body ply in tires. In these tests, extruded body ply material was evaluated against calendered body ply material. Hundreds of tires were built for direct comparisons, testing for uniformity, tensile and elongation, heat shrinkage, peel adhesion, lateral stiffness, torsional stiffness, cornering power, rolling resistance, high speed camber and endurance. Testing validated that Steelastic’s equipment performed the same or better than the calendered alternative.
Benefit 5: It’s the only extrusion-based body ply machine on the market.
The first of its kind, the calenderless Steelastic Body Ply System solves challenges the tire manufacturing industry has faced for years. Ours is currently the only extrusion-based system for manufacturing both steel and textile body ply.
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Ready to get started with calenderless tire production? Explore Steelastic’s Body Ply System and reach out to learn more.