P ETR O LE

U M TIR ES
By Abbie Zadrozny and Michael
Coulombe

What is in a tire?

Tread Area, Rib, Tread Block, Grooves, sipes, Shoulder: All

created with synthetic rubber, more specifically, styrene-butadiene rubbers

which are mixed with distillation residues.
Cap plies: Consists of one layer of rubber, one layer of reinforcing fabric,
and a second layer of rubber. The fabric could be rayon, nylon, polyester,
and Kevlar.
Steel belts: Consists of steel and kevlar.
Radial plies: Cords of polyester, steel, or other textile materials, inlaid
with several layers of rubber.
Bead Chaffers: Two braided steel cords encased in a very thick rigid plug
of rubber

Cost
Selling Price:

-$50-$100 or more depending on type

- mounting, balancing, state new tire fee

recycling prices all impact selling price

and scrap tire

Manufacture price: Roughly half the selling

price

D aily M anufacture Am ount

Approximately 640,000 new tires

produced a day (not including agriculture tires,

off road tires, motorcycle tires, and bicycle tires)

Uses about 7 gallons of crude oil for each tire
created (2 of them in energy for manufacturing)
Top 10 Tire Companies of 2014
1. Bridgestone
2. Michelin
3. Continental
4. Goodyear
5. Sumitomo
6.Pirelli
7. Hankook
8. Dunlop
9. CST
10. Yokohama

D elivered By:

Research
Durability
More miles traveled

Reduce rolling resistance

Pro: will save gas

Increase Safety
wet traction

Benefi
t
Enables transportation of goods and

people in timely manner and more easily

than competing transportation methods
average 15 minutes per mile walking average
2 minutes in a car

How dependent are we on tires?

Trucks move over 70% of manufactured goods.

In the U.S alone nearly 210 million people a day are dependant on driving to
accomplish their everyday activities.
Quality tires are the determining factors in many vehicle related accidents, if we use a
non synthetic rubber tire, that is less durable, less safe, we may decrease the amount of
petroleum used in tire, but we will aso make our most use form of transportation more
dangerous.

RECYCLED

Recycled tires can be used as:

-Playground cover
- Building materials
- Erosion control

-Basketball Courts
- Shoe Products
- Fuel

Tire Pyrolysis
Technique in which tire vapors can be burned to produce power or be
condensed into an oily type liquid, generally used as a fuel
Steps:
1. heat in a reactor vessel containing an oxygen-free atmosphere ----> rubber
polymers break down into smaller molecules
2. The smaller molecules vaporize and exit from the reactor
3. Vapors used for direct fuel
-The molecules that are too small to condense remain as a gas which can be
burned as fuel. The minerals that were part of the tire, about 40% by weight, are
removed as a solid.

Alternatives
70% of rubber made is created into tires.
A new material would have to be durable, cheap, easily
accessible, and easily manufactured to become a logical
alternative to rubber tires.

Natural Rubber
Made from rubber tree.
Trees tapped every 3 days each tap producing 1 cup of sap.
This sap is then turned into latex and then a hard rubber.
This rubber is not as durable as synthetic rubber.
The lifetime of a tire would decrease and thus creating a high
need for an already minimal resource.
Would need massive rubber tree farms to completely remove
the synthetic rubber from the tire industry.

Bibliography
http://www.rma.org/download/scrap-tires/market-reports/US_STMark
et2013.pdf
http://www.rubbernews.com/article/20140203/NEWS/301279981
http://www.bridgestonetrucktires.com/us_eng/real/magazines/bestof3/
speced3_natural_rubber.asp
http://www.truckinginfo.com/news/story/2013/12/study-trucks-movemore-than-70-of-all-manufactured-goods-in-2012.aspx
http://www.rma.org/download/scrap-tires/market-reports/US_STMark
et2013.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tire_recycling#Uses