Tires for snow Articles

A retread, also known as “recap,” is a manufacturing process designed to extend the useful lifespan of a worn tire. The word retread can also refer to a tire which has been taken through this process.

Retreading starts with a safety inspection of the tire. The old tread is then buffed away, and a new rubber tread is applied to the bare “casing” using specialized machinery.

Retreads are significantly cheaper than new tires. As a result, they are widely used in large-scale operations such as trucking, bussing and commercial aviation. They are also the most environmentally friendly way of recycling used tires - in some applications, a tire can be retreaded up to 10 times. Recycled rubber from retreads, and also non-retreaded tires, can be shredded to make rubber mulch.

During World War II, the term “retread” was used to describe Army officers who had left the service before the war began for any reason (failure of promotion, medical disqualification, reduction in force, retirement, etc.), but who had been recalled to active duty in the Army Reserve for the duration of the war. The aptness of the term is apparent when one considers the industrial application of the term to tires.

Motomaster is a line of automotive products sold exclusively at Canadian Tire stores. Products branded as Motomaster range from small items, such as oil filters and air filters, to larger items, such as the Motomaster line of tires.

In some product classes, Motomaster has created its own sub-brand to distinguish high-end merchandise. ‘Motomaster Eliminator’ identifies premium batteries and power-related products, while ‘Motomaster Roughrider’ is a line of truck tires. ‘Formula 1′ is the name used on premium Motomaster oils and additives.

The Motomaster line has shrunk somewhat in recent years as the store has moved towards brand name products. For example, in early 2003, the line of Motomaster spark plugs was fully discontinued in favour of carrying only brand names such as Champion, NGK and Bosch. In 2004, the Formula 1 line of oil filters was discontinued, and in 2002, the ‘Motomaster 60′ line of batteries was replaced with the more generic ‘Sure Start’. One reason for the graduation reduction of the Motomaster line is the existence of the PartSource chain, of which 63 locations are fully owned and operated by the Canadian Tire Corporation as of May 2007. Though these stores carry many of the same products and share much of their supply chain, there is no formal affiliation between PartSource and Canadian Tire stores.

Although the Motomaster name remains on a wide variety of tires, the selection has shrunk recently. Since 2004, the Sentinel A/S and Touring 160 tires have been discontinued, with no Motomaster replacements expected.

Generally, Motomaster is regarded as the “base” or “starting” quality and price point line.

Big O Tires, Inc. is North America’s largest franchiser of tire retailers. It is headquartered in Centennial, Colorado, and has more than 540 franchises in 21 U.S. states and Canada. It sells its own Big O private brand tires and other brands. In addition to selling and servicing tires, wheels, and alignments, Big O Tires provides basic maintenance and replacement services such as oil changes, battery replacement, struts installation, and brake service. Because Big O Tires is a wholly owned subsidiary of TBC Corporation, its franchisees are located in markets that not served by the corporately-owned Tire Kingdom, NTB, and Merchant Tire chains.

History

The company was founded in 1962, when it split from OK Tires. In 1996, it was acquired by TBC Corporation, which also owns Tire Kingdom, NTB, and Merchant Tire.”TBC to Buy Outstanding Shares of Big O Tires” The New York Times. 1996-05-03. URL retrieved 2006-12-02 In 2006, TBC was acquired by Sumitomo Corporation of America”Sumitomo Corporation of America Completes Acquisition of TBC Corporation”. Business Wire. 2005-11-17. URL retrieved 2006-12-02.. Big O Tires remains a wholly owned subsidiary of TBC Corporation.

In a landmark case in 1977, Big O Tires was awarded $19.6 million from Goodyear over Goodyear’s use of the name “bigfoot” tires. The amount equaled 25% of Goodyear’s advertising budget in the states where Big O operated. The amount was cut on appeal and later settled.Doan, Amy. “Xbox Name May Cost Microsoft”. Forbes. 2001-02-05. URL last retrieved 2006-12-02.

References

Snow algae describes cold-tolerant algae and cyanobacteria that grow on snow and ice. Visible algal blooms may be called red or watermelon snow. Snow algae is studied to understand the glacial ecosystem.

Snow algae has been described in the Arctic and on Arctic sea ice, and from Greenland, the Antarctic, Alaska the westcoast and eastcoast of North America, the Himalayas, Japan, New Guinea, Europe, China, Patagonia in Chile and the South Orkney Islands.

More famously, red snow was mentioned in Jules Verne’s book “The Desert of Ice”,
which describes an expedition to the North Pole, decades before such were possible.
Verne notes that the red snow effect is caused by fungi, and was known in Switzerland and Baffin Bay.

The Sapporo Snow Festival (さっぽろ雪まつり Sapporo Yuki-matsuri ) is a famous yearly festival held in Sapporo, Japan over seven days in February. In 2007 it was held from February 6 to February 12.

It is one of the largest winter events in Japan. Teams from outside Japan come to participate, and the festival is thought to be an opportunity for promoting international relations. About two million people come to see the enormous beautiful snow statues on display in Odori Park in central Sapporo, which is the main site of the festival.

The subject of the statues vary and often feature an event or famous person from the past year. For example, in 2004 there were statues of Hideki Matsui, the famous baseball player who plays for the New York Yankees. There are also long ice chutes on which people are encouraged to slide.

The Snow Festival began in 1950 when six local high school students built six snow statues in Odori Park. In 1955, the Japan Self-Defense Forces from the nearby Makomanai base joined in and built the first massive snow sculpture, for which the Snow Festival has now become famous. In years when the accumulated snowfall is low, the Self-Defense Force, for whom participation is considered a training exercise, brings in snow from outside Sapporo. The Makomanai base, one of three main sites, hosts the largest sculptures, with an emphasis on providing play space for children. The third site is the night life district of Susukino, which hosts the ice carvings.

Introduction

Tires provide for steering, traction, braking, and load support by transmitting forces between the vehicle and the road. Lateral Force Variation (LFV) is a property of a tire that characterizes its dynamic behavior of these forces. High values of LFV for a given tire reflect a high level of manufacturing variations in the tire structure that will impart ride disturbances into the vehicle in the lateral, or steering, direction. LFV is measured according to processes specified by the ASTM International in ASTM F1806 – Standard Practice for Tire Testing.

LFV can best be explained by example. Assume a perfectly uniform tire mounted on a perfectly round wheel loaded with a constant force against a perfectly round test wheel. As the wheel turns, it turns the tire, and the tire carcass undergoes repeated deformation and recovery as it enters and exits the contact area. If we measure the lateral force between the tire and the wheel we will see zero change as the tire turns. If we now test a typical production tire we will see the lateral force vary as the tire turns.

Consider a good tire with LFV of 4 pounds. This tire will induce a 4 pound force sideways into the vehicle every rotation. The frequency of the force will increase in direct proportion to rotating speed. This affect will influence the steering of the vehicle. Tire makers test tires at the point of manufacture to verify that the RFV is within allowable quality limits. Tires that exceed these limits may be scrapped or sold to markets that do not require stringent quality.

Waveform Analysis

LFV is a complex waveform. It is expressed using several standard methods, including peak-to-peak, first harmonic, second harmonic, and higher-order harmonics. In production LFV testing these are reported as both magnitudes and angles.

Randy Snow (born 24 May 1959) is the first Paralympian to be inducted into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame. A native of Terrell, Texas, Snow was a state-ranked tennis player as a teenager, but at the age of 16, his spine was crushed by a 1000-pound bale of hay, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. After graduating, he enrolled in the University of Texas at Austin in 1977, where he indulged in the fraternity party life, until forming a wheelchair basketball team under the direction of Jim Hayes, the University of Texas at Arlington wheelchair sports director. Soon afterwards, he began wheelchair racing, and in 1980 transferred to Arlington in order to work with Hayes, eventually establishing himself as the best wheelchair tennis player in the United States.

In 1984, the Summer Olympics added a men’s 1500 meter wheelchair race as an exhibition event. Snow went into heavy training, relocating to Houston, Texas, to train on the same track as Carl Lewis. This was the first Paralympic event to appear before a large audience, and the public were unsure of their feelings for wheelchair-bound athletes. Snow received a silver medal, and the crowd gave the athletes a standing ovation at the end of the exhibition.

Snow went on to win gold medals in the 1992 Paralympics in Barcelona for singles and doubles tennis (the only man in Olympic history to accomplish this), and in Atlanta1996 was a member of the bronze medal-winning wheelchair basketball team.

He was inducted into the United States Olympic Hall of Fame on July 1 2004.

The Snow is a track by the British group Coil, available on the album Love’s Secret Domain (1991) and also released as a 12″ vinyl, cassette and CD EP. A music video of “The Snow (Answers Come in Dreams II)” was directed by Peter Christopherson.

“The Snow (Driftmix)” and “The Snow (Out In The Cold)” are remixes by Peter Christopherson. The Snow (Answers Come In Dreams I)” and “The Snow (Answers Come In Dreams II)” are remixes by Jack Dangers. “The Snow (As Pure As?)” was remixed by John Balance and Drew McDowall.

The EP was later combined with Windowpane and released as Windowpane & The Snow.

12″ vinyl

Side A:

1. “The Snow (Driftmix) – 2:35
2. “The Snow (Answers Come In Dreams I)” – 5:47
3. “The Snow (Out In The Cold)” – 7:43

Side B:

1. “The Snow (As Pure As?)” – 6:33
2. “The Snow (Answers Come In Dreams II)” – 5:57
3. “The Snow” – 6:48

CD

1. “The Snow (Driftmix)” – 2:35
2. “The Snow (Answers Come In Dreams I)” – 5:47
3. “The Snow (Out In The Cold)” – 7:43
4. “The Snow (As Pure As?)” – 6:33
5. “The Snow (Answers Come In Dreams II)” – 5:57
6. “The Snow” – 6:48

Snow chains, or tire chains, are devices which are affixed to the wheels of vehicles to provide superior traction when driving through snow and ice. Snow chains are usually attached to the drive wheels of a vehicle (e.g. the front wheels on a front-wheel drive car), though all four wheels may be chained to provide extra stability. Some owner’s manuals for four-wheel drive cars specify that two specific wheels can be chained, leaving the other two unchained if necessary.

Snow chains are paired into 2 sets of chains. You should buy chains that match your tire size (tire width and radius numbers can be found printed on the tire).

A set of chains are placed on the wheels that are connected to the drive train in order to gain traction in icey, snowy or muddy conditions.

Front Wheel Vehicles:
Most passenger cars are front wheel powered vehicles, so the snow chains would be placed on the 2 front tires.

Rear Wheel Vehicles:
Pickup trucks and older cars are usually rear wheeled drive so the chains are placed on the rear tires.

4 Wheel Vehicles:
4 wheel vehicles can use 2 sets of chains on all 4 wheels. With only 1 set of chains they are often put on the rear wheels, but can be placed on the front wheels instead for the added steering benefit.

In snowy conditions, transportation authorities often require snow chains to be fitted on vehicles that lack four-wheel drive and proper tires. These requirements are usually enforced by checkpoints, before which eligible drivers must have snow-chains fitted on their cars. Near such checkpoints, chains can often be fitted professionally for a fee. Snow chains limit the speed of the automobile to approximately 30 mph (50 km/h), but in deep snow the chains can be very useful.

Purchasing the right size chains for your tires

U.S. tires have standardized sizing information. This information can be found on the sidewalls of the tires. The first letter(s) is for the vehicle type, P for passenger, LT for light truck. The next 3 digit number gives the tire’s width in millimeters. The next 2 digit number gives the tire’s height to width ratio. The next letter is R, which stands for radial ply tires (not radius) followed by the last 2 digit number, which is the rim diameter for the vehicle’s wheels.

A snow gauge is a type of instrument used by meteorologists and hydrologists to gather and measure the amount of solid precipitation (as opposed to liquid precipitation that is measured by a rain gauge) over a set period of time.

The snow gauge consists of two parts, a copper catchment container and the funnel shaped gauge itself. The actual gauge is mounted on a pipe outdoors and is approximately 1.5 m (4 ft 11 in) high, while the container is 51.5 cm (201/4 in) long.

When snow has fallen the container is removed and replaced with a spare. The snow is then melted, while still in the container, and poured into a glass measuring graduate. While the depth of snow is normally measured in centimetres, the measurement of melted snow (water equivalent) is in millimetres. An estimate of the snow depth can be obtained by multiplying the water equivalent by ten.

The snow gauge suffers from the same problem as that of the rain gauge when conditions are windy. If the wind is strong enough, then the snow may be blown across the wind gauge and the amount of snow fallen will be under-reported. However, due to the shape and size of the funnel this is a minor problem.

If the wind is very strong and a blizzard occurs then extra snow may be blown into the gauge and the amount of snow fallen will be over-reported. In this case the observer must judge how much of the water is from snow blown into the container and how much is fallen snow.

Another problem that occurs, is when both snow and rain fall before the observer has time to change the gauge. In all of these cases the observer must judge how much of the water is snow and how much is rain.

Remote reading gauges, such as used by weather stations, work similarly to rain gauges. They have a large catch area (such as a drum sawn in half, top to bottom) which collects snow until a given weight is collected. When this critical weight is reached, it tips and empties the snow catch. This dumping trips a switch, sending a signal. The collection then repeats. If the catch container has a heater in it, it measures the snow weight accurately. It is also possible to tip based on volume instead of weight, with appropriate fill sensing.

Another snow sensor called a snow pillow looks like a round bag laying on the ground. Inside the pillow is a liquid such as an environmentally safe antifreeze. Usually the snow pillow will be connected to a manometer. The manometer reading will vary based on how much snow is sitting on the pillow. This type of sensor works well for many locations but is more difficult to use in areas of hard blowing snow.