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KRAIBURG SUMMIT
First Kraiburg "Retreading Summit Meeting"
Kraiburg Austria ran its "1st Re- treading Summit Meeting" in Leogang near Zell am See in Austria at the end of June. Some 70 delegates from eight European countries and Russia attended the event. The meeting was organised to address current and pressing issues in the retreading sector. One topic on the agenda, for example, was the consequence of advances in connection with truck tread design
Kraiburg Austria are concerned, this will mean having to design and develop new tread patterns for tyre retreading in-house to a much greater extent than before.
Dieter Hasenkopf from the Innovation team used the new K228 pattern as an example to illustrate how this process might work at Kraiburg. Like the K74, K224 and K225, this pattern is also an entirely in-house development which
Kraiburg registered to obtain legal protection for the design. Drilling further down into the details, Dieter Hasenkopf explained about the mould construction and stressed how much more complex and expensive the tread development process would become to meet the required limits in respect of the tyre label. The retreads would first have to be improved in terms of noise
emission and the performance would have to be simulated on different car- casses. Kraiburg is currently expanding its know-how in simulation and has called in the expertise of Prof. Dr Günther Willmerding of Steinbeis GmbH & Co. KG for this purpose.
Kraiburg and CIMA have been working together on circular mould construction since 2012 with a view to enabling the retread companies to use the Kraiburg designs for hot cure processes as well. In her last pre- sentation, Daniela Fanti, Sales Manager at CIMA Impianti, outlined the design adaptation process to make the Kraiburg treads fit for hot cure retreading. The mould designers from Pistoia in Italy are going about this task by taking the Kraiburg CAD data for the flat mould
as a basis and
transferring them to a
circular mould.
Retreads and tyre labelling – an unresolvable conflict? The topic on the agenda for the second part of the "1st Kraiburg Re- treading Summit Meeting" was tyre lab- elling. Hans-Jürgen Drechsler of the German tyre trade association, Bundesverband für Reifenhandel e.V. (BRV), spoke about the mandatory type
approval test for commercial vehicles that has been in force in Europe since November 2011. Although retreads are exempt from the labelling requirement until 2017, an interim policy is needed to ensure that the retread business will still be viable beyond this deadline. Further criteria for inclusion in the type approval process, in addition to the requirements for retreaded tyres under the current legislation, ECE 108/109, are rolling resistance, noise emission and grip in wet conditions. At the same time this lays the foundations for tyre labelling under 122/2009/EC and 1235/2011/EC. The worst case scenario is that retreads will be subjected to the same procedure as new tyres. There is a far greater number of variants due to the combination of different makes of carcass, materials, dimensions and processes (approx. 8,000 different options for trucks according to an estimate by BIPAVER), therefore the retreading companies would potentially be faced with testing costs on a large enough scale to put them out of business (approx. EUR 5,000 per option). In setting up the “Re Tyre project”, which attracted approx. EUR 2 million of EU funding, BIPAVER has created a platform which seeks to come up with a political solution for retreaded tyres which will accommodate the require- ments for the type approval test and the tyre labelling legislation but will still be economically viable for the retread business. Kraiburg is the only manufacturer of retreading material involved in the project alongside associations and retread companies. In the second part of his address, Hans-Jürgen Drechsler revealed for the first time, the interim results of the tyre tests which are currently being carried out. These suggest that the second aim of the project is also attainable, which is to develop a simulation tool which will provide reliable and conclusive insights into the properties of a retreaded tyre and
into whether it will meet the required criteria before it is manufactured.
Retreaded with KRAIBURG – second-class tyres?
Kraiburg is also busy on its internal "Tyre Labelling" project concentrating on offering its retreading partners products (tread compounds and tread designs) and services (adaptations of the retreading process if required) for a labelling system in conformity with the law. The aim pursued by Kraiburg is to make a substantial contribution to a secure future for the retreading industry. Christoph Priewasser, Product Manager at Kraiburg Austria, finished with the first set of results. These confirm that the quality of retreads is greatly influenced by the quality of the materials used to make them, in conjunction with modern manufacturing technologies. Successfully marketed patterns from the K_base, K_tech and K_plus product lines are already making it possible for retreaders to make tyres which are on a par in terms of rolling resistance with new tyres made by reputable manufacturers.
Ending on a high with summit games and mountain lodge
Having dealt with the theory, the retreading specialist moved onto the practice and led the "Summit Meeting" delegates in a challenge at 1,760 metres on the summit of the Asitz, the mountain nearest to Leogang. It was a chance to test their strength at the 1st Alpine Olympics in traditional folk festival disciplines, such as the horizontal beer stein hold. The leisurely social evening together in the mountain lodge was another chance for the retreaders to pick the brains of the speakers and to engage in shop talk with the Kraiburg team. The Austrians are abundantly pleased with the feedback. Kraiburg Austria has once again proven that it lives out the philosophy behind its slogan, "We power your retreads!"
Stefan Mayrhofer
patents and the resulting implications for in-house tread development at Kraiburg. Picking up on a second focal point, Hans-Jürgen Drechsler of the German tyre trade association, Bundesverband Reifenhandel e.V. (BRV), and Christoph Priewasser, Product Ma- nager at Kraiburg Austria, reported on the latest findings to emerge from the “Re Tyre project” run by BIPAVER and the internal "Tyre Labelling" pro- ject running parallel to this at Kraiburg.
Much more input: design patents and labelling
After an official greeting from Kraiburg Directors Thorsten Schmidt and Stefan Mayrhofer, European patent lawyer Edith Vinazzer launched into an introduction to the main points of registered design rights and patent law. Under current European law, the originator of a design has basic copyright protection for three years without having to make any sort of application for industrial property rights. Further protection can be applied for in the form of a design patent. This is granted for a term of five years in the first instance and can be renewed up to four times for five years at a time. In order to be eligible for protection, a design must have its own individual character, meaning that it must look different from other existing designs in terms of general appearance. As far as the implications for tread development at
Thorsten Schmidt ( left) with some of the summit team
18 Retreading Business