Tire Benchmarking

When developing new products or new business strategies, collecting comparable data of products can provide focus to the R&D team and streamline the development process. Thus getting your product to market and creating revenue faster.

Comparative Tire Analyses and Market Evaluation

Investigations of polymeric components and products benefit significantly from the understanding gained from conducting benchmark testing. Examples of useful comparisons include:

• Inter-company product comparisons
• New vs. used product comparisons, especially after a range of service conditions
• Inter-lot comparisons
• Property comparisons between compounded formulations

 
Smithers can assist with composition and properties comparisons of products from the marketplace. This work can range from:

• Sample preparations
• Nondestructive tire analyses
• Cut tire section analyses
• Test protocol selections
• Validation testing
• Data analyses and final reporting
• Tools and evaluations for competitive review

 
As a full-service provider, Smithers can perform a vast number chemical analysis evaluations and physical tests for whole tires down to its individual and molecular components. The following are some examples of the types of test protocols and evaluations used for product comparisons:

• Infrared analysis (FTIR)
• Tensile properties
• Tear resistance
• Compression set
• Stress relaxation
• DIN abrasion
• Flexural properties
• Dynamic mechanical properties
• Generic reconstructed formulas
• EDX
• Izod impact
• Atomic absorption
• Rubber processability analyzer (RPA)
• Coefficient of friction
• Scanning electron microscopy (SEM)
• Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA)

Conformity of Production and Quality Analysis

Smithers provides independent, third-party testing as an ISO 17025 certified laboratory with the ability to validate compliance to specifications and other quality expectations.