From the Rolls-Royce experimental archive: a quarter of a million communications from Rolls-Royce, 1906 to 1960's. Documents from the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation (SHRMF).
The progress of pneumatic tyre design, focusing on the use of rayon and synthetic materials.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 178\2\ img061 | |
| Date | 6th March 1940 guessed | |
| -6- Tires: The pneumatic tyre is still of course, the major use of rubber in transportation. Progress in design and construction of tyres, particularly for heavy duty on fast trucks and buses is continuing to make impressive strides. 3 years ago Dr. Gibbon included in his paper a discussion on the use of rayon in such tyres and he predicted that rayon tyres would find application in severe types of service. That prediction has been fulfilled, for the demand for rayon tyres has, for many months exceeded our capacity to produce them. A few minutes ago I mentioned, in connection with new synthetic rubber like materials, that we are learning more and more about the ways in which the molecule may be assembled or arranged to give, not a replica of nature's product but a new material to suit a particular need. Rayon represents a good example of this type of progress. Within recent years chemists and engineers have learned how to take the cellulose molecules as produced by nature and rearrange them to satisfy specific requirements. As an illustration we may look at the pneumatic tyre which requires a fabric having certain specific properties; namely; high tensile strength, ability to withstand high temperatures, ability to withstand repeated flexings, etc. The rayon manufacturers have produced a material particularly designed to meet these requirements. The next slide shows a comparison between conventional tyre cord and cord made from this type of rayon. It will be noted that the rayon shows an advantage when tested at 70° and 60% relative humidity. This advantage over cotton increases when the tests are made under hot or dry conditions, and these are conditions more nearly representative of those in a tyre. The hundreds of thousands of rayon tyres which have already proved themselves on the road under all types of service condition have shown again that the chemist and the engineer need not try to imitate nature but can, thru a direct attack on the molecular structure, build up a material to suit a particular need. The cellulose chemist has now gone far enough so that the value of rayon has been established in tyre service and there is every reason to believe that progress in rubber technology will be matched with progress in textile technology to produce the tyre of tomorrow. | ||