Polymer/Clay Nanocomposites for Tire Applications

Abstract

Polymer nanocomposites have garnered a lot of interest from both academia and the manufacturing industry in the past two and a half decades and have become a stimulating part of current research. The dominance of polymer/clay nanocomposites in the automotive industry is attributed to the remarkable improvement in material properties compared to conventional micro- and macrocomposites. This chapter focuses on the scope of developing polymer/ clay nanocomposites for various tire applications. The basic requirements of tires and introduction to organoclays are also discussed in this chapter.