Rubber thickness measurement on car tyres

The thickness measurement is being based on an electro-magnetic method and is said to facilitate the inexpensive, non-destructive determination of the rubber thickness atop the reinforcing steel mesh at every relevant monitoring point of the tyre.

As examples may be cited the total rubber thickness of the tread or the under-tread thickness to the topmost steel belt package each, but also the rubber thickness of the bead above its core. Following the firm’s information, the method spares the previously applied destructive spot checks or the expensive and sophisticated X-ray fluorescence analysis.

Under these circumstances it would be possible to significantly intensify the inline quality checks of such relevant dimensions while production is running, regardless of whether new tyres or retreads are being manufactured.

In addition to that, the method would give a chance to specifically investigate tyres being under suspicion for having provoked an accident. There are presently two handheld probes available, the combination probe F30 T for measuring treads up to 25 mm as well as under-treads in a range from 3 – 8 mm and a modified F10 for thicknesses to a maximum of 6.5 mm. Phynix states that meanwhile the new probes are successfully used by one of the largest German tyre manufacturers and one big producer in Asia.