The way that humans led their life changed completely with the introduction of wheel. Tire can be also seen as an enhanced version of that wheel, and it is used in every vehicle, from cycle, car, truck, etc. Ever wondered, how a tire is made, a tire is formulated by setting raw rubber into a mold, so that it can take the desired shape and acquire the size needed.
In this blog, we will not exactly talk about the tire, but the mold, with the help of which a tire is acquires its shape, or should we say rubber acquires the shape of a tire. And, not only that, how the mold can be made using the technology of 3D printing.
What is 3D Printing Technology Doing in Tire Mold Manufacturing?
In the industry of tire mold manufacturing, 3D printing has two levels of application: first, complex tire molds, particularly the manufacturing of steel sheet in winter tires or snow tire molds requiring high performance. The second one is the integrated manufacturing of complex molds, that is, there is no requirement to manufacture steel sheets and inlaid steel sheets separately.
This application is used to simplify the procedure and upgrading the tires. It has an improved performance.
What is the Issue?
The steel sheet made from 3D printing still has issues of inlaying in the mold. Presently, steel molds are frequently inlaid by hand, i.e., a steel sheet groove is processed in the cavity of the mold and then the steel sheet is manually inserted.
A smaller number of steel sheets does not cause any sort of issue in mold manufacturing, but winter tire molds require a lot of steel sheets, and some specially designed tires use in excess of 4,000 steel sheets.
Inlaying of steel sheets is troublesome for mold manufacturers, particularly when steel sheets are more in number, the distance between the sheets is less, resulting in small space and hard to display.
This problem is obvious when the distance is fairly less. Though, the direct manufacturing of an entire piece of mold through 3D printing technology will simplify the process and overcome the problems in the steel sheets inlay.
Actually, there are many attempts in the tire mold manufacturing industry, but many failed in the testing stage and never produced on mass scale till now.
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