Tire Remanufacturing & Energy

Introduction & Motivation

The transportation sector is one of the major energy consuming sectors in the U.S. and worldwide. In the U.S. alone nearly 28% of the national energy expenditure takes place within the transportation sector. Amongst all transportation modes, the use of on-road vehicles has grown enormously in the past few decades. The figure below illustrates increase in energy consumption of on-road transportation sector by mode.

The rise in energy consumption and fossil fuel demand of on-road transportation modes is coupled with substantial rise in demand for raw materials and production of waste. In addition, rising concern about global change, volatility in fuel prices, and continued growth in transportation demand has caused policy advocates and industry officials to take critical steps towards saving energy, minimizing emissions, and reducing depletion and production of waste. Ever since the introduction of Corporate Average Fuel Economy in the U.S., passenger car vehicles have become more fuel-efficient. Since a considerable amount of energy during a life cycle of a vehicle is expended in operation, it is important to evaluate the energy savings improvements for each of the components in the vehicle that contribute to losses.

Tires are of the major components that contribute to energy losses in a vehicle. The tread of a tire encompasses only 10 to 20 per cent of the construction weight of the tire, hence, scrap tires retain high material and energy value that can be effectively recaptured. This has led to diversified applications of scrap tires beyond the conventional disposal path of being sent to land fills. For example, the sectors that utilize scrap tires extensively are using it for tire-derived fuel applications (cement industry, pulp and paper industry, industrial boilers), electricity cogeneration (electric utilities), civil engineering purposes, etc. Another promising market for scrap tires is tire retreading. Tire remanufacturing (commonly known as tire retreading) is the process of remanufacturing a used tire to like-new by applying a new tread to the tire. A retread is a previously-worn tire that has gone through a remanufacturing process designed to extend its service life. Retreads are significantly cheaper than new tires. As such, retreads are widely used in large-scale operations such as bussing, trucking, and commercial aviation.

The tire retreading industry is reportedly the largest sector of remanufacturing industry in the United States in terms of the number of remanufacturing (retreading) plants. It is apparent that tire retreading leads to energy and materials savings in the production process due to minimization of raw materials requirement and reduction in capacity of manufacturing energy consumption. However, the ultimate energy savings strategy depends on whether it could save energy in all life cycle stages of the product including use-phase. In this paper we analyze the energy savings potential of tire retreading from a total lifecycle perspective.

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