When the automobile industry is developing rapidly, the competition in the tire market is gradually intensifying, and the market's demand for tire performance is rocking high. The pattern design of the tire determines the performance of the tire to a large extent, but the pattern design and manufacture is regarded as a technological difficulty by the industry. The number of tire molds in each batch is small and the categories are very large. Also, the shape is complex, with many radians and angles, which is difficult to be accurately completed by traditional processing technology. These constitute the challenges that tire mold manufacturers face every day.
There are two major technical difficulties in tire mold manufacturing. First, high-performance tire molds, such as winter tire or snow tire molds, have high requirements for tire performance. The second is tire molds with complex patterns. Such molds require complex parts to be processed by hand, and some need to be manually inlaid with steel sheets.
In the traditional tire mold manufacturing process, manual trimming and inlaying of steel sheets are troubles for some mold manufacturers. Especially high-performance tire molds, such as winter tires, snow tires, or specially designed tires, require a lot of steel sheet modification, and some molds even require thousands of steel sheets, and the process difficulty increases exponentially.
In response to such market demands, UnionTech has tailored a brand-new digital 3D printing solution for the tire mold industry with its own technical advantages and years of experience in the 3D printing industry, aiming at the manufacturing pain points of the tire mold industry. This innovative solution includes 3D printing equipment dedicated to the tire mold industry, printing materials, production process packages, post-processing solutions, and a 3D printing cloud platform system. The whole solution truly integrates 3D printing into the tire mold manufacturing process.
“3D printing technology meets the design characteristics of the tire mold industry's diversification and complexity and solves the industry's pain points to a certain extent. Tire mold manufacturers are no longer troubled by the complexity of patterns and process manufacturing. This improves the production and manufacturing capabilities of the tire mold industry. , also increases the speed of tire product design iterations.”
——Gao Xingbin, Director of UnionTech Industrial North Division
UnionTech RA600
The 3D printer tailored for the tire mold industry
In order to meet the application in the tire mold industry, UnionTech has developed a dedicated 3D printer RA600. Its stability is excellent, partly thanks to high-end optoelectronic components and partly due to the efficient and stable control scheme. The tire mold printed by RA600 is ultra-precise. The details of the pattern are well displayed, the size deviation of the pattern groove is controlled within ±0.05mm, and the roundness deviation is controlled within ±0.05mm. Complex shapes that are difficult to reach manually can be realized, significantly increasing the design space. Complicated processes such as manual trimming and inlaying of steel sheets are optimized, which shortens the production cycle, improves the overall efficiency, and saves a lot of labor costs and production costs.
With an SLA 3D printer RA600, tire mold factories can print on demand, reduce inventory pressure, and even achieve zero inventory. In addition, perhaps more importantly, 3D printing, as a new type of additive manufacturing technology, is green and environmentally friendly, and reduces chemical pollution to a certain extent.
As one of the leaders in global industrial 3D printing, UnionTech has high-stability and high-quality printing equipment, as well as its self-developed software system, including data preprocessing software Polydevs, printing control software RSCON/DSCON, process algorithm Software BP, digital production management collaboration system Unionfab. A complete system of 3D printing software systems has been constructed. Over the years, UnionTech has been committed to subverting the traditional production process, optimizing the data preparation process, simplifying the implementation, and refining the management to meet the requirements of enterprise intelligent management.
“With the rapid development of additive manufacturing, 3D printing technology empowers the industrial upgrading of various industries and reshapes various industries. UnionTech has always focused on industrial applications and focused on helping customers achieve great careers. We always rely on the innovative thinking that keeps pace with the times to cope with the unpredictable market development, and do better and deeper in the field of 3D printing. 3D printing technology promotes the development of the market and industry. The tire mold industry will have a foreseeable breakthrough under the empowerment of UnionTech 3D printing technology upgrade, and 3D printing technology will achieve breakthrough development in the field of tire mold.”
--Wang Chao, Deputy General Manager and General Manager of Marketing Center of UnionTech
Observers believe that the tire mold industry is about to usher in digital innovation, and disruptive changes are just around the corner. 3D printing companies like UnionTech are working on the development and application of new equipment and new materials, intelligent manufacturing, and digital production management system, empowering the tire mold industry with innovative additive manufacturing technology.
