Italian Agricultural research council tests BKT rubber
Headquartered in the north Italian town of Seregno, BKT Europe says it is committed to increasing product knowledge; the latest action on this front has been a round of European testing of the Mumbai, India company’s agricultural tyre range, Agrimax Fortis. BKT charged the Agricultural Research Council (CRA-ING) in Treviglio, Bergamo with carrying out an independent, standardized and comparative assessment for the purpose of evaluating the performance of the Agrimax Fortis. BKT says the tests show fuel consumption and soil compaction – features that impact productivity, the environment and the farmer’s pocket – comparable to performance features offered by two unnamed “competitors, acknowledged leaders at an international level”. BKT believes the results show the benefits of its investment in research, particularly in “eco-friendliness”.
BKT says it has been developing models and sizes in order to meet the evolving needs of “any user class”. It believes its “rigorous production processes have enabled the Indian company to reach highest quality standards”. In order to evaluate the real positioning, BKT decided to conduct a comparative assessment at an independent organization testing the tyres by means of standard procedures. The CRA-ING Laboratories are an independent organization, which “has activated a dedicated work group for the international harmonising of methods for the purpose of detecting performance, ergonomic and security features of agricultural tractors within a frame of standardising activities in the agricultural sector”. CRA-ING tested BKT’s Agrimax Fortis against those of competitors by means of a series of comparative tests according to international criteria.
The tyres, for high power tractors, were tested in the rear sizes 650/85 R38 and 800/70 R38, with 600/70 R30 as the front fitting. According to BKT, the series included several tests in which the BKT product “achieved first class results, in particular in the size 800/70 R 38”. In handling tests, evaluation was dependent on the subjective opinions of the professional testing users; in these tests, Agrimax Fortis achieved results equal or better than those of competitor one, and close behind those of competitor two.
In the more objective tests, the Agrimax Fortis achieved even better results. Evaluating the traction performance, CRA-ING showed the BKT tyre surpassing the performance of competitor one by more than ten percentage points, and between three and five points ahead of competitor two on both the road and the field. BKT says its Agrimax Fortis yielded less slippage on the ground, reducing fuel consumption.
In the flotation test the Agrimax placed between the results of the competitors, a couple of percentage points behind number one and a couple ahead of number two. As the brand explains, the ability of the tyre not to sink is essential for achieving greater productivity with less compaction. The test also demonstrated BKT’s measuring system, which was adopted in this case, by “using a synthetic sponge in order to obtain a visible real time footprint”.
The final result presented in the testing report referred to the displacement test, evaluating the green aspect of the tyre, taking into consideration fuel consumption. In this test, the Agrimax Fortis performance showed its best result. The BKT product showed up to 10 per cent less displacement than its two competitors. This, according to BKT, shows that the Agrimax Fortis can demonstrate fuel savings and operational costs for the farmer. BKT believes the tests vindicate their belief that the Agrimax Fortis tyre range is a “valid competitor” to the traditionally acknowledged Europe market-leading brands.
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