Bridgestone claims greater efficiency, durability from new manufacturing process

Technology drawn from tyre retreading forms the core component of a new truck and bus tyre manufacturing process developed by Bridgestone Corporation. The Japanese manufacturer says the new technology, which it calls ‘Trisaver’, is expected to result in both significant resource conservation and enhanced fuel efficiency. The name Trisaver, incidentally, refers to the three types of savings Bridgestone says the technology enables – savings of costs, resources and CO2 emissions.

Since acquiring Bandag in 2007, Bridgestone has been developing a global solutions business using retread tyres and Bandag’s retread technology. While new tyres are manufactured by vulcanising all the materials at once, retread tyre manufacturing bonds together a separate and previously vulcanised casing and the new tread. Focusing on this basic difference in manufacturing methods, Bridgestone discovered that overall tyre performance can be improved by manufacturing the casing and tread through a process that is optimal for each component.

In addition to employing this retreading-like method, Bridgestone’s Trisaver technology uses a new compound in both the casing and the tread. The tyre maker reports that this new technology greatly reduces rolling resistance compared to conventional tyres, and at the same time enhances durability, thereby potentially increasing the number of times the tyre can be retreaded.

Bridgestone refers to this new technology as “revolutionary” and says it plans to market it in the near future. At present the company is in the process of conducting road trials and analysing product marketability.