The Influence Of Process Oils On The Properties Of Tire Tread Compounds Based On Functionalized SSBR

One of the challenges of the automotive industry has been to increase the fuel efficiency of their vehicle park, without compromising on the safety aspects or the driving experience. This is also mirrored by the increasing number of tire labeling regulations being implemented in different countries and regions, where demands on fuel efficiency and grip properties must be met. As tires have a large impact on these properties, R&D efforts have been focused to address the challenge of producing high performance tires with low rolling resistance while maintaining high traction properties.

To meet this challenge, one of the most important routes has shown to be on the development of high performance tire rubbers by selection of correct key raw materials, such as the polymer, the filler and not the least the tyre oil. It has been observed in previous studies that rubber compounds made with naphthenic black oils as plasticizers show a lower rolling resistance in comparison with other tire oils such as TDAE, RAE and DAE. In this study we will focus on studying the effect of tire oils on the properties of ultrahigh performance tyre tread compounds based on fuctionalised S-SBR