L-R (Dr. Sheik Mohammed, Shri Chandramouli Suresh, Shri Manmeet Chaddha, Shri N Rajagopal, Shri Ganesh Kamath, Shri Paul Vannan)
All India Rubber Industries Association - Southern Region professes its Tech Series with a vision to encourage the progressive run of the rubber industry and enlighten stakeholders on the recent developments on raw materials, machinery, processes, and industry trends.
This Tech Series event has been instrumental in bringing the best minds in the rubber industry empower rubber professionals learn, interact and help the rubber world build a better future through a series of technical and non-technical presentations by eminent industry leaders from India and abroad.
The Tech Series event, held in Madurai, at the Heritage Madurai, on February 20th, 2025, attracted a large number of rubber industry professionals from production, processing and related sectors to find out about the latest innovations and network with industry fraternity. Topics present in this series included new product development using reverse engineering and mitigating rubber bloom.
The event started with prayers and the National Anthem, Shri. S. Ravikumar, Regional Secretary, AIRIA - Southern Region welcomed the gathering and informed that the Tech Series is committed to remain as an essential event to share knowledge, learn about the latest technical and industry developments, participate in discussions, see new products, and shape the future of manufacturing, quality, and design. He appealed to members of the rubber industry to come forward and leverage AIRIA events to strengthen their businesses. He also introduced the Members on the Dias.
Shri. Chandramouli Suresh, Director, Wriston Elastomers, took stage to present an overview of AIRIA as a beacon to promote interests of the rubber industry, foster growth and innovation, the significance of the role of AIRIA as an epicenter for interaction between rubber entrepreneurs via a platform to articulate challenges, solutions that contribute to progress, achieve development and modernization goals, and shoulder responsibilities in promoting rubber economic recovery, improve governance, and address the challenges. He appealed to members of the rubber industry to actively participate in the AIRIA events and seize the opportunity to fortify their businesses and ensure sustained growth.
The first topic on Reverse Engineering for New Product Development, was presented by Shri. P. Paul Vannan, Senior Deputy Director, Indian Rubber Materials Research Institute. The presentation covered the concepts, tools, and techniques behind the rubber formulation development by reverse engineering methods. This is useful if one finds a need to introduce new products to market quickly, or when one is in need of a part that is no longer in production, or to overcome a situation where your supplier has gone out of business, or to transform obsolete products into useful ones by adopting them to new systems and platforms. He walked the members through the 13 stages of composition analysis and 10 stages of physical characterization. In short, it involves analyzing the product to learn more about its composition, basic ingredients, special additives, discover formulations, and perform a variety of chemical and analytical rubber testing techniques that help understand qualities such as the physical properties, chemical analysis on element detection, amount of carbon black, ash and volatile matter, anti-oxidants, resins, and vulcanization ingredients.
This topic, Reverse Engineering for New Product Development, was continued by his colleague, Dr. Sheik Mohammed, Assistant Director, IRMRI. He covered through a case study the composition analysis, type of polymer, composition of volatile fragments, ash type, probable composition, and preparing a summary. He touched upon two common test methods FTIR and TGA, to determine percentage composition of a rubber sample, identification of polymer, inorganic fillers, analysis of sulfur, carbon black, volatile materials, extractable materials, sample preparation, physical analysis, chemical analysis, analytical characterization, distinguishing between sample and specimen, reconstruction of a typical tread formula, pilot and plant runs.
The IRMRI Speakers were given the mementos as a token for their update in the Reverse Engineering for New Product Development.
Shri. Ganesh Kamath, DGM Marketing, Processing Issue Technical Services, NOCIL presented the topic "Trouble shoot rubber compounding, bloom and processing issues", and mentioned ways to create a highly protected rubber compound for high exposure ozone applications. He began by walking through the manufacturing flow from raw rubber to mastication to mixing to shaping and fabrication to vulcanization and stated that not all assumed defects in rubber are considered bad. He went on to the process that helps with bloom identification before delving deep into material selection, formulation and process adjustments, molding, and storage.
In the session, Shri. Ananthu Narayan, Director, Ceyenar Chemicals Private Limited, spoke on the AIRIA in Kerala. He emphasized the role AIRIA plays to foster growth and innovation, be the medium to Government representation for impactful outcomes beneficial for every stakeholder, be it design, process, raw materials, production, growth, innovation, and collaboration.
Expressing gratitude, Shri L. Aravind, Director, Bhargave Rubber, Madurai, delivered a heartfelt vote of thanks, acknowledging the collaborative efforts that made the Tech Series a resounding success, and appreciated the sponsors and partners for their generous support instrumental to the event happening and for those ensuring the event progressed without a glitch. The event concluded with a delightful cocktail dinner providing the perfect backdrop for further interactions and discussions.