Page 37 - Newcom

EQUIPMENT
Alberta’s extreme conditions inspire design of Michelin’s new drive-axle tire
Traction was addressed through the combination of an extra-
wide tread, which provides more biting edge across the ground
and improves the rubber-to-void ratio. Staggered shoulder blocks provide lateral grip to handle slip- pery conditions and sawtooth lugs with more than 800 serrated edges boost grip on ice and snow-packed surfaces.
“We wanted to design the tire so that every rotation brought trac- tion,” said Adhikari.
Casing durability was addressed through four separate features, which in combination help prevent casing damage - stone ejectors, shock, impact, and road hazard protection, sidewall protection, and Co-Ex Technology for a cool-run- ning tread.
To maximize uptime, Michelin redesigned the housing of the tread and the positioning of the shoulder blocks allowing for a quick installa- tion and removal of snow-chains.
“The challenge is to make the notch just big enough that the largest chain would hold and the smallest chain won’t wiggle,” said Adhikari.
The Michelin X Works Grip D tire is available in the U.S. and Canada in 11R24.5 size and load range H. To learn more about truck tires and services, visit www.michelintruck. com. TW
This month’s
CROSSWORD
SOLUTION
is brought to you by
By Lou Smyrlis
EDMONTON, ALBERTA
Michelin North America is launch- ing the most aggressive drive-
axle tire it has ever produced
this August, aiming to meet the extreme conditions of oil field and logging fleets. And the inspiration for the tire – the Michelin X Works Grip D – came from the same
place where the tire was launched: Alberta.
Fleets and dealers in the Grande Prairie area were at the heart of the customer-centric process, which included in depth discus- sions to drive the design process followed by input on 2D- and 3D-tire prints. Coming to market with the X Works Grip D took about 20 months.
“The customers in this market (Alberta’s logging and oil field fleets and the dealers serving them) are very knowledgeable. They know exactly what they want, so the path was very clear,” said Kamal Adhikari from Michelin’s Greenville, S.C., office.
Nor were these fleet custom-
ers and dealers shy about telling Michelin when it missed the mark, as they felt it had with the previous offering for this market segment, the EX2. Dealers were losing sales and pressing Michelin to either bring back the predecessor to the EX2, the EX, or come up with a new solution.
Michelin chose the second option, explained Adhikari, who was directly involved with the new tire development process all the way to the tire launch in Edmonton’s his- toric Fairmont hotel June 19th.
“This is not an evolution of what we previously offered for this segment of the market. We started from a blank sheet. We started new,” Adhikari said.
In designing the X Works Grip D tire Michelin focused on three key performance attributes: traction, casing durability and uptime.
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PART III VOLUME 3
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August 2018 • Truck West 37
VOLUME 3 PART III
FAST FORWARD
ADAPTING TO A DISRUPTIVE FUTURE
Brought to you by the editors of Newcom Trucking Group, in partnership with Imperial Oil Limited