Control of Tire Wear Particulate Matter through Tire Tread Prescription.

This study aims to analyze tire wear particulate matter (TWP) from tread rubber with different formulations and to compare the concentration of TWP with different wear devices. The TWP generated during the abrasion of truck and bus radial (TBR) tires were examined, and the effect of using different types of rubber and carbon black (CB) were investigated. When natural rubber (NR) was solely used as the tire tread rubber material, there was a higher concentration of 5-10 µm TWP.

Durability and Service Life Prediction of Fluorocarbon Elastomer under Thermal Environments.

This study investigated the service life prediction of fluorocarbon elastomers that are used in automotive vapor fuel hoses under thermal environments. The changes in mechanical properties such as the tensile strength, elongation, compression set (CS), and hardness according to thermal aging were investigated for two types of ternary fluoroelastomers. Destructive tests of the tensile strength and elongation showed large variations in the mechanical properties under the same condition because there is no continuity of samples.

Tribological Properties of Polyamide 46/Graphene Nanocomposites.

Polyamide 46 (PA46) is used in various automotive parts because of its excellent heat resistance and mechanical properties. This study aims to improve the frictional properties of PA46 using the lubricating ability of graphene. Nanocomposites are prepared via two mixing methods: Graphene powder is compounded directly with PA46 pellets through a twin-screw extruder, or PA46 powder is added to graphene dispersion for self-adsorption, and subsequently, it is dried and compounded with PA46 through the twin-screw extruder.

Highly Anisotropic Adhesive Film Made from Upside-Down, Flat, and Uniform Vertically Aligned CNTs.

We have created a multifunctional dry adhesive film with transferred vertically aligned carbon nanotubes (VA-CNTs). This unique VA-CNT film was fabricated by a multistep transfer process, converting the flat and uniform bottom of VA-CNTs grown on atomically flat silicon wafer substrates into the top surface of an adhesive layer. Unlike as-grown VA-CNTs, which have a nonuniform surface, randomly entangled CNT arrays, and a weak interface between the CNTs and substrates, this transferred VA-CNT film shows an extremely high coefficient of static friction (COF) of up to 60 and a shear adhesion force 30 times higher (12 N/cm) than that of the as-grown VA-CNTs under a very small preloading of 0.