Crack growth performance of tire compounds

A new laboratory test method is established for the assessment of the dynamic crack-growth. By using this method, excellent correlations between tear analyzer results and the service performance of various tire components are obtained. Since the machine can handle up to ten samples per run, it can provide a powerful and fast predictive tool for testing the crack-growth resistance of tire compounds. Thus, it is suggested that this type of machine will become more common in the future, being used to determine the optimum compound formulations, and tire testing will then only be used to confirm the results.