The final design resembles other non-marking tires, but a telltale dot on the face of the tread shows where a carbon black channel had been integrated through the tire steel band. The engineering and product line teams field-tested different prototypes. Adding some kind of pathway for electrical conductivity in a non-marking tire was just the first step. But then the customer requested “just one more thing.” Could Camso also turn the new non-marking tire into an anti-static tire? New rubber compounds and performance engineering led to a non-marking tire that’s 63% more thermally efficient and lasts 51% longer than the Magnum NM SM. “ONE MORE THING…”Ĭamso engineers began reworking their tire design and ran live tests with customers. By no coincidence, these relative shortcomings in heat management and wear life are both the result of removing carbon black from the rubber mix. Relatively poor thermal properties also make them more prone to premature failure. Non‑marking tires, while more costly than conventional black tires, typically have a much shorter lifespan than standard black solid rubber tires. The customer was looking for a new press-on tire that would simply last longer. In discussion with a customer experiencing major challenges with static build-up, our team was determined to come up with a real solution to the problem at ground zero: “Where the rubber meets the floor.”īut the development process actually began with research into an entirely different problem in a paper mill. We began investigating the notion of a NMAS tire three years ago. Specialized anti-static tires are available for certain applications, but there have been no non-marking anti-static (NMAS) tires available until just recently. Ultimately, the problem originates with using tires that fail to ground the vehicle and, up to recently, tire manufacturers have not offered a solution. Then more operating costs are incurred for maintenance staff to inspect and replace them. Meantime, the straps and chains tend to gather dust and debris over time that gradually insulates them from the ground. Drivetrains are still insulated from the frame by rubber mounts and bushings. But again, their effectiveness is limited. The idea is to allow the electricity to dissipate on the floor as the truck operates. More commonly, users will attach chains or grounding straps under the truck. Grounding the attachment does generally not ground the accumulated electricity, no matter how hard you hit it. The frame and equipment attached to the forklift are insulated from the drivetrain components that actually accumulate the charge. This not only damages the floor and equipment, it generally doesn’t work. Some forklift operators will attempt to ground the vehicle by raising the forks or attachment, and slamming it onto the floor. The industry has tried makeshift methods of dealing with problematic static. With non-marking tires, the static charge in the forklift builds up to potentially hazardous levels – enough to spark up a fire in the truck, to wipe out electronic circuits, or to knock down a person who inadvertently touches the equipment. Non-marking tires don’t have this anti-static property since silica is acting as an insulator. Carbon black is a highly conductive material, and it’s this ingredient in the rubber recipe that allows tires to ground the vehicles they’re on. The non-marking characteristic of the tire rubber is the result of using silica instead of the traditional carbon black. But for those who work anywhere a forklift fleet is running on non-marking tires, the potential for static shocks and sparks is an ever-present hazard. For most of the world, static buildup is an invisible phenomenon.
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