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INDUSTRIES
DRY
ICE BLASTING FOR TIRE MANUFACTURING
BENEFITS
OF DRY ICE BLASTING IN THE TIRE MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY
Tire manufacturers
have reported some of the benefits
they've experienced using Cold Jet's dry ice blasting technology:
- Production
costs reduced by ½
million to one million dollars per facility annually.
- Press
downtime reduced by 300%
via in-press mold cleaning.
- Annual
production increased by 3,500 tires per press.
-
Virtually all hand drilling of micro vents
eliminated.
- Near
zero-defect levels achieved in curing related blemishes
and scrap.
- Expensive
tool damage stopped by reducing disassembly and the
incidence of tool misalignment.
- The
need to re-stamp sidewall lettering on after-market
brand molds minimized.
Cold
Jet customers in the tire industry include over 30 facilities of
the world's largest manufacturers and the number is growing each
week.
Superior
Results!
The following table is an excerpt from a report generated by the
corporate engineering staff of one of the world's leading tire manufacturing
companies. The data was taken during a side-by-side "shoot-off"
of a Cold Jet Single-Hose Radial Feed Series Blast System (Cold
Jet VSH) and a blockshaver system using the tire manufacturer's
own personnel and pelletized/block dry ice purchased locally by
the tire manufacturer. The light truck tire molds were side-by-side
in an Akron style clam-shell press, and the molds were maintained
at cure temperature for the cleaning trial.
One
of the results of this demo was that the customer, who had purchased
the block Shaver unit a year earlier, decided to retire the block
Shaver unit and replace it in their daily mold sidewall cleaning
activities with the Cold Jet Single-Hose Radial Feed Series Dry
Ice Blasting System.
2-Piece
36X12.5/16.5 LT Steel Mold
|
Single-Hose Dry Ice Pellet Blasting
|
Two-Hose Dry Ice Block Shaving
|
|
Top half sidewall cycle |
4 min. 10 sec |
Top half sidewall cycle |
11 min. 40 sec |
|
Nozzle |
Isentropic (low press) |
Nozzle |
Inductive (round) |
|
Blasting pressure |
60 psi (4.1 bar) |
Blasting pressure |
70 psi (4.8 bar) |
|
Pellet feed rate |
50% |
CO2 block feed rate |
60% |
|
Bottom half sidewall cycle |
4 min. 25 sec |
Bottom half sidewall cycle |
11 min. 0 sec |
|
Nozzle |
Isentropic (low press) |
Nozzle |
Inductive (round) |
|
Blasting pressure |
60 psi (4.1 bar) |
Blasting pressure |
85 psi (5.9 bar) |
|
Pellet feed rate |
50% |
CO2 block feed rate |
60% |
|
Total cleaning cycle |
8 min 35 sec |
Total cleaning cycle |
22 min. 40 sec |
|
Total pellet usage |
27.6 lbs (12.5 kg) |
Total CO2 block usage |
44 lbs (20 kg)
|
|
Tread area (L Avg) @ 80 |
103.5 dB |
Tread area (L Avg) @ 80 |
Not attempted ¹ |
|
Tread area (L Avg) @ 90 |
103.5 dB |
Tread area (L Avg) @ 90 |
Not attempted ¹ |
|
Blasting pressure |
60 psi (4.1 bar) |
Blasting pressure |
N/A |
Note:
¹ Cleaning of the tread area was attempted with the block
Shaver, but the operator was unable to access all areas of the tread
and the time-weighted average of the noise generated was higher
than OSHA allowable limits.
Summary
Only Cold Jet's patented dry ice technology has proven to give you
two to five times the blast aggression for cleaning micro vents
without drilling. Tests
prove that Cold Jet's single-hose dry ice blasting systems are quieter,
use 37% less dry ice and clean in less than half the time of alternative
dry ice blasting systems.
When press operators
use Cold Jet dry ice blasting to do daily in-press spot cleanings
of sidewalls, they eliminate quality problems and dramatically increase
the number of cure cycles available between mold cleaningsas the
dry ice blasting process cleans micro vents, sidewalls and tread
sections of either clam or two-piece tire molds.
To
calculate your potential savings click
here to access our calculator.
And for more specific
and technical information see our technical
papers.
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