Continental AG has opened a High Performance Technology Center (HPTC) in Korbach, Germany, next to its existing production facilities. The company says the center "is moving tire production into the digital age."
The HPTC will operate like "a research department on the shop floor," Continental says.
“In addition to producing ultra-high-performance tires to meet the exacting requirements of high-powered sports cars, we will also be building test tires as we develop and trial new manufacturing processes in Korbach,” says Plant Manager Lothar Salokat. “Using cutting-edge technology, we document every detail of our research and development projects so that our innovations can then be rolled out in Continental tire plants worldwide.”
In a first for Continental, all HPTC's machinery is completely networked via sensor systems and software. The tire maker calls this approach “Industry 4.0”, and it allows every step in the process and the behavior of the materials during processing to be fully documented.
“As a result, our tire-building experts, chemists and physicists are able to design cutting-edge processes and monitor every detail of their suitability for industrial-scale tire production,” says Georg Reichert, HPTC project manager in charge of construction in Korbach. “This means that from now on we can carry out even ultra-short production run testing on the conventional tire-making machinery used across Continental. Changes to individual materials and production steps and to vulcanization temperatures and times can be simulated and then their impact on the finished tire can be investigated in vehicle tests.”
The center includes everything usually found in a tire-building plant. The rubber compounds required for the individual components are produced consistently in line with their recipe; steel cord and textile cutters are available for producing the semi-finished products, as are extruders, various tire-building machines and hot presses for vulcanization.
While all the tire-building machines meet Continental's usual standards, individual segments of the green tire can be cured at different temperatures. This kind of “multi-zone” heating can be used for test series, for example, to enable detailed monitoring of the chemical reactions that take place during vulcanization.
The center in Korbach, which opened June 7, is located on the site of a Continental plant that produces passenger tires, industrial tires, bicycle tires, motorcycle tires, as well as rubber hoses for ContiTech.
Continental invested 45 million euros in the HPTC, and created 80 new jobs with its opening. The center will carry out some research and development work as well. That work typically had been done only in the company's Hanover location.
For more information, visit www.continental-corporation.de.
