Development and application of tire vulcanization labels

In 1888, from the birth of John Bird Dunlop invented the world's first tire, after more than 100 years of development, tires, an important part of the car, has undergone many amazing changes. Now, there are more than 10 kinds of markings on a car tire, and of course a new type of tire label – vulcanized label – has been derived.

Production experience, especially vulcanized labels, proficient in various technical processes, has won the favor of the top customers in the tire industry. Here, share with you the development history and application of tire vulcanization labels.

The development of tire vulcanization labels

Recording the tire number is manually transcribed before the tire vulcanization label is available. Since the tire number is only a shallow indentation on the black tire, when copying the data, the error will occur. When the tire production is large, the workload of copying the data is quite large, and if it is wrong, the data management of the entire plant is fatal. Due to the difficulties in the traditional trumpet transcription, it is impossible to realize the data collection in the whole production process of the tire, and thus the modern logistics management cannot be realized. The hope of solving this problem lies in the label, but since the environmental conditions of the tire during vulcanization are special, the ordinary label can not adapt to the environment of high temperature vulcanization, so the vulcanized label came into being.

The application of vulcanized labels on tires began in the late 1980s, and Michelin was the first major manufacturer of bar code vulcanized labels on tires.

The first tire manufacturer in Shanghai Rongyang was Jiatong Tire Company. In addition to several large foreign-funded enterprises, Jiatong is one of the earliest tire companies to carry out information transformation in China. In order to track tire products, all information and warehousing logistics information in the tire manufacturing process needs to be entered into the company's system. This seemingly simple requirement requires an unavoidable transformation of the product - each tire must have a unique ID number. It is in this case that vulcanized labels began to be used in China, but domestic tire manufacturing companies have fallen behind for decades. At that time, vulcanized labels have been well-established in many foreign tire companies. However, because of this, domestic tire manufacturing companies can easily learn from the successful experience of foreign-funded enterprises, so information technology transformation has been able to develop rapidly in the domestic tire manufacturing industry.

What is a tire vulcanization label?

Before we understand what a tire vulcanization label is, let's first understand why the tire is vulcanized.

The rubber used in the production of tires, the internal microstructure before vulcanization is a linear polymer, is a viscoelastic plastic rubber, easy to deform, low strength, no use value; through the vulcanization, cross-linking of linear polymers in plastic rubber The reaction produces a network of polymer materials and becomes a highly elastic rubber having a useful value, and is macroscopically cured.

Tire vulcanization labels are designed for tire vulcanization processes with cure temperatures up to 200 ° C and short-term vulcanization temperatures even higher. The vulcanized label can be vulcanized simultaneously with the tire. After vulcanization, the barcode on the label and the tire are integrated into one, never falling off, and can accompany the entire life cycle of the tire.

The vulcanized label paper and substrate are mainly made of polyester. The adhesive is a multi-purpose insoluble viscous rubber emulsion. This emulsion can provide good adhesion during tire vulcanization, making the label and tire after vulcanization. Adhesive, no deformation, no discoloration, and waterproof, acid, alkali, salt, resistant to most petroleum oils and low fat solvents, abrasion resistance, high and low temperature resistance.

The role of tire vulcanization labels

The vulcanization label was born in the late 1980s, and by the end of the 1990s, it has played a very significant role in tire production process, quality inspection, quality tracking and production cost control.

Tire vulcanized bar code labels offer superior thermal transfer performance and long-term readability, and provide visibility and traceability throughout the supply chain, making the world's leading tire manufacturers such as Goodyear, Dunlop, SouthPacific, Kumho , Bridgestone, etc., have used vulcanized labels on tires.

Performance requirements for tire vulcanized labels

Since the vulcanization temperature and conditions of each tire manufacturing company are different, the requirements for vulcanized label suppliers are more complicated. Shandong is one of the most concentrated areas for tire manufacturing in China, contributing more than 50% of domestic tire exports. Shanghai Rongyang established Qingdao Rongyang Printing Co., Ltd. in 2012 to provide better localization services to its customers.

Modern tire manufacturers, the performance requirements for tire vulcanized labels are summarized in the following aspects.

(1) It can withstand the heat and pressure of the tire when it is treated with high temperature and vulcanization.

(2) Provides durability and wear resistance.

(3) Incorporating into the adhesive system to form a strong permanent bond at high temperatures and when vulcanizing the tire.

(4) A 100% accurate first read scan can be achieved on a high speed transfer line.

(5) Each bar code is a sequence code of different data.

Common problems and solutions in tire vulcanization label printing

For the customer's use requirements, the tire vulcanization label production process needs to be strictly controlled. According to the production experience of Shanghai Rongyang for 8 years, the quality of the tire vulcanized label is mainly manifested in the following aspects: dropout, overflow, unclear barcode, and heavy code.

The low viscosity of the raw materials and the transfer of the adhesive are the main reasons for the drop; while the high viscosity of the raw materials is the main reason for the overflow. In this regard, Shanghai Rongyang strictly controls the procurement of raw materials, selects only the materials of the top suppliers, and focuses on the inspection after the materials arrive, ensuring that only qualified materials can be put into production.

For bar code unclear, Shanghai Rongyang concentrates on internal technical strength and cooperates with suppliers to develop high-quality ribbons to ensure that 100% of printed bar codes can be easily scanned and read. The quality has reached the industry leading level, and the blur rate can be controlled. Within four ten thousandths.

Re-code is a taboo for bar code printing, which will cause confusion in the production line of the customer's tires. In severe cases, the tires produced will be completely discarded. Therefore, Shanghai Rongyang attaches great importance to the problem of re-sizing of vulcanized labels. The operator keeps the print records every time the order starts printing to the end of printing. At the same time, the printing software is improved, and the re-code recognition function is added to the system. This makes double-insurance prevention of re-code. From 2008 to now, the bar code label processed by Shanghai Rongyang has never had a problem of heavy code and won the praise of customers.

New application of tire vulcanization label

In recent years, with the popularity of mobile terminals such as smartphones and the rise of QR code applications, many tire manufacturing companies in China are studying the management of one-dimensional barcodes on vulcanized labels and two-dimensional codes on tread labels. Allows users to more intuitively understand more manufacturing information about tires. This research makes sense. With the powerful WeChat platform, the results of this research will not only affect the consumption habits of end users, but also promote the tire manufacturer to make a more reasonable exploration of its internal process management optimization.