Milliken’s stand is one of the first that greets visitors as they enter Tire Technology Expo 2017, and the company is reporting a successful show so far. “We’ve had a lot of traffic coming into the stand,” said Howard Haselden, technical service and development manager for Milliken reinforcements. “We’re very pleased, and have already booked a bigger stand for next year.”
A large drum wound with Milliken’s Tegris material is an eye-catcher on the front of the stand. Tegris is a woven and pressed polypropylene that’s said to be highly durable and very strong. Typically used in the tire industry as a process liner, for example to feed rubber into a TBM, rubber spacer strips are now being added at the edges for precise material feeding and reduced risk of material damage. The new developments come at the request of customers, which include tire manufacturers and machinery suppliers such as VMI.
Haselden added that Tegris’s excellent release properties, even from sticky rubber, make it well suited to its task. A patch repair is also a relatively simple undertaking in the very rare event of a crack appearing in the polypropylene.
Show attendees can visit Stand C100 to see Tegris for themselves. Tire Technology Expo is open until Thursday, 16 February.
