Goodyear Wingfoot teams with Aussie Lightfoots

Helen and John Taylor, an Australian couple who have made a speciality of setting records for low fuel consumption in the USA, have done it again.

Converting their miles per American gallon to litres per hundred kilometres yields an astonishing 4.155 litres /100 km in their 2009 Volkswagen Jetta diesel.
This time they were riding on Goodyear Fuel Max tyres, and improved on their 2008 figure by a further 15.4%!

This consumption is more fuel-efficient than the most popular hybrid, and shows what can be done with modern diesel technology, careful preparation and fuel saving driving techniques.

Follow this link to learn more.

So how do they do it? Tyres obviously play a part, since Goodyear sponsored their 9000 mile circuit of the States. We are constantly told to maintain high air pressures if fuel savings are desired, but what are the limits? A tyre usually absorbs around 2 KW just rolling around under load at 120 km/h.

The safe maximum pressure of a tyre is shown on the sidewall, and for a passenger tyre is in the 36 (Standard Load)- 42 (Extra Load) p.s.i. range. It will not burst at 43 p.s.i., but a maximum is specified to maintain a margin of safety for tyre abuse such as potholes and rough edges. So economy drivers go to the limit, or beyond. A tyre with 15 p.s.i. pressure pulls nearly twice the rolling resistance as the same tyre at 33 p.s.i. at 120 km/h, the higher pressure giving a fuel consumption improvement of about 4%. Steel belt radials have the lowest rolling resistance, too.

Staying with tyre design, a narrow tread width, shallow tread pattern, and a rounded tread arc radius all contribute to lower rolling resistance, and with specially compounded tread rubber it is possible to design a tyre to maximise the reduction in a tyre’s contribution to fuel consumption.

Preparation of the vehicle using low friction lubricants, a well run-in engine, diesel fuel designed to give “more bang for the buck”, and other tricks of the trade are also used, such as refuelling at low ambient temperatures, like the middle of the night.

But driver’s skills are required to get good figures. Feather-footing, low top speeds, shift points carefully calibrated, travelling when wind speeds are low, smooth car surface with no unnecessary projections, climbing hills carefully (just making it over the top), and no air-conditioning are techniques used. Depending on the rules of the contest, in most cases coasting downhill, and drafting, is prohibited. In certified fuel economy runs conducted in Australia, an independent observer travels in the car to prevent this.

Want to know more on the tyre angle? In our All About Tyres section you will find Green Tyres are Black, David’s ten tyre tips, and Exploding Cylinders which will expand on rolling resistance and fuel consumption.

Why CarbonBlack?

Our Website is named CarbonBlack- because that’s what tyres are made of – right?

Well, partly – about 35% of a tyre is carbon black.
So what is it? And where does it come from?

As with most things these days “Oil” is the answer, which is one of the reasons why tyres cost so much.

Carbon black USED to be made from burning natural gas in insufficient air, and collecting the smoke that resulted, rich in carbon, on cooled metal surfaces. This was sometimes called “lampblack’, or later “channel black”. The pollution it caused was indescribable, let alone the waste that escaped to the atmosphere.

So another process took over in the early 1950s, called “furnace black”. Oil was burned inside a furnace in insufficient air, and the resulting carbon collected at the outlet. Dependent on the type of oil burned, the design of the furnace, the operating temperature, the flow rates, nozzle design, and any number of variations, it was quickly discovered that the actual properties of the carbon black (still just carbon remember) could be varied.

A whole new family of carbon blacks resulted, from the smallest particle size, intensely black as used in printing inks, to the larger and softer grades used in say motor tubes, which had quite a grey colour, and all the grades in between.

But wait- there’s more, as the Demtel man used to say.

The actual surface of each carbon particle could also be varied, to be extremely absorptive or low absorption. This structure varied the way that the carbon molecules could be intimately mixed into the long chain rubber molecules, which affected the degree of reinforcement imparted to the rubber by the carbon black. This then had a direct affect on the physical properties imparted to the rubber by mixing it with carbon black, such as wear, cut resistance, tensile strength, stiffness (modulus), elasticity, heat build-up under flexing, and a host of other properties.

So the fast developing science of carbon black became dominant in the development of rubber compounds. Without carbon black, tyres would be slippery in the wet, would wear out very quickly (particularly when hot), and generally would not be suitable for today’s automotive uses. That’s just the tread. Other blacks were designed for use in the casing, in the tubeless liner, bead compounds, bead stiffeners, and the many other applications used in a tyre.

The name of our web site pays homage to its importance to the rubber industry.

Terrible stuff to get out of your skin though. I couldn’t wear a white shirt for years!

If tyres burn, why don’t we set them alight and save the planet?

Riots in the streets are nearly always accompanied by stacks of burning tyres defining the no-go zone. They burn very well, although smokily. Once started, they’re almost impossible to put out.

So why aren’t they used more widely as fuel if they burn so well. After all, there is a millions of tyres discarded worldwide every year. They are no good for landfill, because they don’t decompose, and are hard to keep below the surface. In fact, I know of a pile of over 200 million tyres outside L.A. waiting for someone to devise a use for them.

Furnaces to burn them have been developed, and the resulting heat used to raise steam, or for central heating. These take either whole tyres, or shredded tyres, use a conveyor feed system to load the furnace, but somehow haven’t been widely adopted. Someone has to load the conveyor, too!

The reason for non-adoption is possibly “acid rain”. When rubber is vulcanised, it is combined with sulphur. This process cross links the rubber molecules, and converts the rubber material into a stable, three dimensional lattice, which is elastic. The level of sulphur is generally 1 to 2 percent. This level of sulphur is around the same as for high sulphur coal. When burnt, (oxidisation) it becomes sulphur dioxide, and other oxides such as sulphur tri-oxide, dependent on the air/fuel mix. Burn coal, you get carbon dioxide, burn tyres you get sulphur dioxide. High sulphur coals are very much out of favour.

In the atmosphere, these oxides of sulphur combine with water to form sulphuric and sulphurous  acid, which pollutes the air, kills vegetation and our forests which are the lungs of the world.

So a great deal of research into the design of the furnace to minimise these effects and scrub the exhaust gases clean of smoke and pollutants is required, which makes the furnace more expensive.

Then there’s the costs of collecting the old tyres, sorting , classifying, shredding, and the costs of disposal of the ash that results from the burning, though the steel content can be recovered as slag from the furnace grate. However, there awaits big rewards for the designer of a furnace that will be easily portable, has a captive market for its product (heat), and a ready supply of worn out tyres available at preferably no cost.

Biodegradable Oil-Reply

I followed a mate’s Landcruiser Diesel into the tennis club the other day, to be greeted by the overwhelming smell of fish oil coming from the exhaust.

He told me that he was running it on recovered cooking oil from the local restaurants and clubs- he works at the municipal refuse dump, so it’s free (at present).

There’s a thriving collection industry springing up to collect this oil, he tells me.

Now those clever Americans are marketing a lubricating engine oil made from rendering down beef tallow- an animal fat, not vegetable nor mineral from the ground,

Each cow contributes 90 kg of tallow fat to the process. I wonder where the energy to render it down (by boiling) comes from -oil, coal, natural gas or animal fat?

Read more at http://motorage.search-autoparts.com/motorage/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=592387

Green revolution in auto-industry

Firestone Autocare shops in two American States are test marketing the use of twice-refined, used motor oil during routine car servicing.

The mind boggles that sufficient oil is available for collection, re-refining, and distribution to justify the program.

However, economics will determine whether the program is ultimately successful or not.

Recycling used oil uses 85% less energy than processing oil from new, Firestone executives claim. Many parallels to recycling tyres by retreading them can be drawn.

Good on them for having a go.

If you want to know more, go to http://motorage.search-autoparts.article/articleDetail.jsp?id=950056

Should Tyres have a use-By Date?

Channel 7’s “Today Tonight” program on Friday 5th December, picked up on earlier publicity originating from an American T.V. program “Twenty-twenty”. An aggrieved customer in South Australia complained that he had been sold Light Truck tyres that were already 14 years old when fitted. One tyre had separated its steel belts from the tread ring, causing damage to his mudguard, and raised the risk of an accident.

The British Rubber Manufacturers have recommended that tyres more than six years old should not be sold, but there is no law requiring this anywhere in the world at present. The American Rubber Manufacturers Association states that there is no scientific evidence to support a six-year limitation on the life of a tyre.

The Channel 7 program cut pieces from the sidewall of the tyre, and did a “tensile test”, pulling on the test piece till it broke. Pieces cut from the (used) 14 year old tyre broke at a lower tensile than from a new tyre. Why they tested the sidewalls, which are a different rubber compound to the tread/steel belt area, it is not known, but it is not surprising that testing two tyres made 14 years apart would give different test results. The reason? The tyres were different!

Tyres are warranted for their life by the manufacturer. Occasionally tyres, like many products, are subjected to a recall program. To enable identification of these, a code is branded into the sidewall, which is used world wide, and is a requirement of the American Department of Transportation. It is called the DOT code. Practically all tyre manufacturers worldwide use this code.

The code details the actual factory in which the tyre was made, the design, and among others items, the last appearing group lists the week and year the tyre was made. 3 digits for the ninetees, four digits for the noughties. Examples then are 489 for the 48th week of 1989, 2604 the 26th week of 2004.

Tyres are generally 6 months to 2 years old by the time they are fitted to your car as replacements. The original equipment tyres are generally one week to six months old, dependent on whether the car was made here, or imported.

The Australian tyre market is so fragmented, with many makes and models of vehicles sold, that the supply chain for replacement tyres is very long, and large stocks are held at distribution points to meet market requirements. For example, the 11 hectare distribution centre at Somerton, Victoria, can hold up to 11 million tyres. Naturally, efforts are made through inventory control to ensure quick turnaround of stock going into the store, to reduce holding costs.

Eventually, tyres are shipped out to your local tyre store. Here they should be stored in racks, in a “cool, dry place”. Many tyre storage areas paint their tyre storage area windows with blue paint to screen out U.V. This is because tyres get harder with age. The vulcanisation process continues at a very slow rate, and protective agents such as antioxidants and antiozidants incorporated into the mix diminish in effectiveness with prolonged storage. Walk into a darkened tyre store, and you can smell the rubber. A somewhat doubtful farming practice used to be that tractor tyres were stored by the farmer to “harden them up”, and possibly improve tread wear. Really, all it did was increase the risk of buttress cracking.

Unless stored correctly (read “All About tyres/Storing a tyre” on our www.carbonblack.com.au site), the tyres will eventually craze or crack most severely where the tyre is resting on the pipe rack. This is because stretched rubber is attacked by ozone in the air. Ozone is generated by electric motors and lightning, so maybe the shop compressor is the culprit. However, tests done in the past have never been able to show that tyres stored this way will not give a satisfactory life. The deformations caused by the pipe rack run out as soon as the tyre gets run in on the vehicle- say 10 kilometres, depending on the temperature.

The real sleeper in all this is your spare wheel. Stored in the boot, or under the tray of a light truck, it is subjected to high summer temperatures, and may lay there undisturbed for six years or more if you don’t have to use it. Our discussion on what to do about that is contained in “All about tyres/original equipment”. Basically, it has missed out on six years of design improvements whilst sleeping in the car boot, or lying in the dealer’s racks waiting for a sale, or in the South Australian’s case, 14 years.

So should tyres have a “Use by Date?” It would appear that provided they have been stored correctly, there is not a problem with tyres encountered in the usual course of trade. Besides, somewhere out of Broken Hill or Wilcannia or somewhere like that, you will be pleased to find that the tyre service has your badly needed tyre, even if it is a bit dusty.

All that applies to tyres also applies to automotive car batteries of course, for all the same reasons, except that a lead acid battery does in fact have a finite life, and has to be stored correctly with its charge maintained until it is sold. The warranty period then kicks in once it is sold.

Mazda 3 outstripped Holden VE and Toyota Corolla, previous market darlings

Someone once said “Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door”.

Build a pretty little car that looks good, drives well, and doesn’t cost a fortune to run, and it will attract buyers into the showrooms faster than a plain Jane, reliable, but conservative looking car.

It’s all about emotion- and you must admit, the Mazda 3 is a pretty looking motorcar!

January sales of the Mazda 3 outstripped Holden VE and Toyota Corolla, previous market darlings. The Holden defeat could be explained by the fact that fleet sales are always low in January. Petrol prices remained high for most of January, when there didn’t seem to be any logical reason why it was so.

The Australian dollar hovered around the US$ 65 cents mark, and crude oil around US $40 a barrel, so some price gouging of touring holiday makers seemed apparent. Yet prices as low as 97 cents/litre, and as high as 127 cents/litre, were recorded in Sydney in that period.

No wonder sales of small cars are booming, as it’s apparent that high petrol prices will be around for some time. Just can’t see them driving Sydney to Melbourne comfortably in 8 hours with a full load of passengers and luggage to see the Australian Open, or the Formula 1 Grand Prix. Yet that is what’s happening with the newer designs of small cars. Bring them on!

Green cars a cornerstone in Government $3.4 billion aid package to car industry

The government is to inject an extra A$3.4 billion ($2.3 billion) into the ailing car industry to offset tariff cuts and a global economic slowdown, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said today.

Rudd said his government would proceed with long-standing plans to halve tariffs on imported cars to 5 percent in 2010 from 10 percent, while offering aid to help the A$7.7 billion industry cope with slowing sales amid global economic gloom.

“Some might say it’s not worth trying to have a car industry,” Rudd told reporters in Melbourne, where much of Australia’s automotive industry is based. “That is not my view, it is not the view of the Australian government.”

Rudd said Australia would outlay A$3.4 billion from 2011 to 2020 to transform the industry, including money for a “Green Car” fund to help automotive companies design and sell locally-made environmentally friendly cars.

The fund would see the government match industry investment in green cars on a A$1 to A$3 basis over 10 years from 2009.

Other funds would help consolidation in the auto parts sector and help suppliers boost capability.

More about green cars

A small factory in India produced India’s first electric car in the early noughties but because the price was 25% higher than other cars, it did better in export markets. The Reva was among the world’s first electric vehicles sold commercially. It did not take off initially quite as its maker had hoped but it has blazed a trail for other electric cars — such as General Motors’ new Chevrolet Volt — which are coming into their own in an age of high oil prices.

Besides Britain  and Norway where it is sold as the G-Wiz, Reva is now also sold in Cyprus, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Malta, Norway, Spain and Sri Lanka. It is also being test marketed for applications such as mail trucks in Austria, Germany and the United States.

Developed entirely in-house, India’s first electric car was 95 percent indigenous from the start, built of lightweight steel and plastic and with fewer moving parts. It can be fully charged in seven hours by plugging into a regular 15 amp socket at home.

The fully-automatic models have a top speed of 65 km/hr and a range of 80 km, and a running cost of just 0.4 rupees/km.

Obama’s “Inflate Your Tyres”

Irrespective of your politics it is good to see that one US presidential candidate supports proper inflation of tyres as a way of promoting fuel efficiency and thus helping the environment. He must have been reading Davids’ blog on tyre pressure!