The new hot retreading production area takes up around 2,000 square metres of the now 15,000 square metres site, with a similarly sized warehouse area. The total area can be increased to a space of 20,000 square metres if necessary, allowing long term plans to be made for the Hammelburg site. After its takeover of Reifen Müller in 2018, Hankook has continued to focus on factory retreading in particular for its Alphatread brand for the commercial vehicle arm of its business.
“Compared to the old factory we have been able to almost double our production capacity. We can now produce up to 100,000 hot retreaded tyres each year. Alongside state-of-the-art technology, the decision to exclusively use A-carcasses helps to make Hankook Alphatread profiles the highest quality,” explains Manfred Zoni, TBR sales director at Hankook Reifen Deutschland. “Our focus is on trailer tyres, tyres for classic construction site traffic and tyres for regional distribution transport - both for trucks and buses.”
“We aim to offer more dimensions and to focus with our fleet partners on extracting all of the value Hankook build into our premium new truck tyres,” adds Guy Heywood, vice president, marketing, truck & bus tyres at Hankook Tire Europe.
Every Hankook commercial tyre is designed in such a way that not only can it be regrooved, but the high-quality carcass can also be retreaded several times. This is made possible by the use of an additional 5-9 mm of base rubber beneath the tread.
Zoni explains the retreading process. “The delivered carcasses are dried and cleaned in our warehouse. Each carcass then goes through a visual inspection and laser shearography stage, during which we can also detect damage that is not visible. Only perfectly flawless carcasses get the A classification - the basic requirement for an Alphatread product. However, should a carcass be discarded during this first step because a production defect is detected, the Hankook carcass guarantee applies. We replace the damaged carcass with a new one. In the next step, the carcasses are roughened and covered with a new layer of base rubber from bead to bead. This ensures that it is almost impossible to distinguish the finished Alphatread profiles from those for new tyres. The tread with the profile is then vulcanised onto the carcass in the mould. The finished tyre undergoes a test of up to 11 bar in a pressure chamber and is then subjected to another shearography - a special feature in our factory. Only if there are no irregularities here as well will the tyre be released for sale or returned to the customer who brought it to us for retreading.”
He adds that the company also uses a UK contractor for UK retreading.