Yokohama, Borbet win Innovation Awards

Messe Essen announced the Reifen 2014 award winners on the evening before the show opened, with Yokohama taking the coveted Innovation Award in the Technology and Products category. The Japanese manufacturer presented its process for the visual representation of the aerodynamic and acoustic rolling behaviour of tyres to the jury, using the Japanese space authority, JAXA’s supercomputer from space research to show that the noise level of a rolling car tyre also depends on flow structures in front of the tyre, which are subjected to a compression effect. The new results are helping to develop quieter and more aerodynamic tyres.

The Environmental and Resource Conservation category award was given to German alloy wheel manufacturer Borbet. Its ‘Nature Wheel’ process supplements the traditional casting of alloy wheels with the utilisation of a natural mineral. The light raw material is processed and integrated, as a skeleton, into the wheel, wherever the use of metal is not required statically. That leads to a weight reduction with unchanged strength. The jury said that Nature Wheel is opening up fundamentally new potentials for the production of alloy wheels in chill casting and is raising the product quality.

Italian balancing and assembly machine specialist, Cemb prevailed in the Service Concepts / Process Optimisation category. Its Paguro P2 balancing system for truck and bus tyres was rewarded, due to a space-saving, manually operated measuring run, which makes it suitable especially for the mobile tyre service.

With its Stud Cleaning Tool, the Counteract Balancing Beads company won in the Motor Vehicle Service category, offered for the first time. With a rotating attachment, the user can clean up to ten wheel studs in three minutes in comparison with conventional wire brushes.

The expert jury assessed a total of 30 applications in the categories: Technology and Products; Service Concepts / Process Optimisation; Environmental and Resource Conservation; and, as a new category, Motor Vehicle Service.