Continental has announced the expansion of its port tyre portfolio with a new range of V.ply tyres featuring its new Port Plus compound developed to tackle the heat and other typical conditions of port operations in the region.
The global tyre major said in a statement that in addition to the V.ply tyres, its radial tyres for port applications and its ContiConnect digital tyre monitoring platform will be available in the Middle East by 2019.
According to Continental, its port tyre and solutions portfolio has been specifically engineered to meet the safety standards, weather, road, payload and driving requirements in the Middle East. One of the causes of tyre failure in this region is the build-up of heat in tyres due to lack of maintenance. Ambient temperatures in the region often exceed 45°C in summer, increasing wear and reducing durability of standard tyres.
Commenting on the new product offerings which will launch in the region next year, Jose Luis de la Fuente, MD, Continental Middle East, said: “Continental are always looking at ways to innovate technologies and improve safety standards for our customers. In the Middle East, over half of measured trucks and trailers are under-inflated, resulting in road safety risks and unpredictable costs for fleets. We believe that the new port radial tyres coming to the region next year, combined with our new digital technology, ContiPressureCheck and ContiConnect, will contribute to enhancing tyre safety in the Middle East.”
Continental is offering the V.ply tyre portfolio with a new Port Plus compound, a composite that reduces heat generation and abrasion, the two primary causes of tyre wear, to significantly extend tyre life.
Explaining the concepts behind the development of the new tyres, Continental said that In ports, there is a distinction between central tasks – pick and stack applications on the one hand and load-and-carry applications on the other – where all tasks require different vehicles, each with specific demands. In pick-and-stack applications, vehicles are not only used to load and unload containers, but also have to do a lot of short distance driving that requires frequent on-the-spot turning. The focus of the tyre development, therefore, needs to be the reduction of abrasion and the subsequent tyre wear it causes.
Continental said the new radial tyre portfolio will be available with integrated tyre sensors in preparation for its digital solutions ContiPressureCheck and ContiConnect, which will be launched in the region mid-2019. Other than picking and stacking containers, vehicles in ports may also operate in applications that involve driving over longer distances and at higher constant speeds. Heat build-up is the biggest challenge and the main reason for high maintenance costs and vehicle downtime.
The company says that despite safety and efficiency being the key success factors in port operations, tyres with low air pressure are still a common and cause a lot of breakdowns. To ensure the correct tyre pressure and temperature, Continental has developed the digital tyre pressure monitoring systems ContiPressureCheck for individual vehicles and ContiConnect for fleets.
Continental tyre sensors are at the core of both systems. The intelligent sensors constantly measure temperature and pressure from inside the tyre and provide data which is then displayed on a handheld tool, on a screen in the driver’s cabin or on a web portal overseeing the fleet. The alerts and notifications let the fleet operators know which tyres need immediate attention.
