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Our country is the world’s largest producer and consumer of tires; in 2023, its tire production accounted for about 56% of the global total, making it an important symbol of Chinese manufacturing. In recent years, developed countries such as those in Europe and the United States have sought to restrict the high-quality development of China’s rubber tire industry through measures such as tire labeling regulations, anti-dumping and countervailing investigations on tires, and technical barriers. Based on this, Qingdao University of Science and Technology, in collaboration with companies such as Yiyang Rubber and Plastic Machinery Group Co., Ltd., Zhongce Rubber Group Co., Ltd., Qingdao Double Star Tire Industry Co., Ltd., Pulin Chengshan (Shandong) Tire Co., Ltd., and Teto (Qingdao) Tire Technology Co., Ltd., formed a research team. This team succeeded in developing the key technical equipment necessary for high-performance radial tire production, as well as the mechanisms for industrializing such technologies. These technologies have been put into use in over 30 enterprises, and the related products are sold to more than 100 countries and regions around the world, including Europe and the United States. This has laid a technical foundation for China’s tires to evolve from being merely \"Made in China\" to truly \"Created in China\". This technology recently won the First Prize for Scientific and Technological Progress in 2024 from the China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation. According to Professor Wang Chuansheng from Qingdao University of Science and Technology, the lead researcher on this achievement, technological innovation is key in the global competition within the rubber tire industry today. To this end, the research team focused on the key pain points and challenges associated with the high-quality development of the rubber tire industry, carrying out technical research to achieve significant innovations in three areas: technical equipment, tire design, and manufacturing processes. First is innovation in technical equipment, with the invention of a high-quality and efficient continuous mixing method for radial tire rubber compounds, along with the corresponding set of equipment. During the mixing process of tire rubber compounds, the uniform dispersion of fillers and the appropriate length of the rubber matrix molecular chains are key factors determining tire performance. The high sensitivity of rubber materials to shear increases the complexity of the mixing process. During mixing, rubber tends to heat up rapidly, which in turn leads to the oxidation and scission of molecular chains under high temperatures; this poses a significant challenge to maintaining the stability of the material’s properties. Furthermore, the shear-thinning effect leads to a decrease in the viscosity of the rubber compound, making it difficult to effectively break down and uniformly disperse the nano-scale filler aggregates, thereby affecting the quality and performance of the final product. The traditional multi-stage mixing mode of \"mixing–resting–mixing\" addresses the issue of temperature control, but it results in a significant reduction in production efficiency. The unnecessary heating and cooling cycles lead to substantial energy waste, with the energy consumption during the mixing process accounting for around 55% of the total energy used in tire manufacturing. This not only reflects the complexity of rubber mixing technology and the difficulties associated with its processing, but it also highlights the urgent need for technological innovation in the industry to achieve efficient, low-carbon, and sustainable development. In the face of this challenge, the research team overcame numerous difficulties and, for the first time in the world, proposed a new concept of tandem continuous mixing as well as a new mechanism for mixing through constant-temperature high-shear reactions. They developed a modular combined mixing method and technology based on \"spatially timed migration,\" and created a series of tandem continuous mixing systems equipped with functional rotors, thereby solving the problems related to maintaining a constant mixing temperature while coordinating the shear rate. Compared with traditional mixing technologies, the new technology increases production capacity by over 40%, reduces energy consumption by more than 25%, improves dispersion by 2 to 3 levels, and enhances overall performance by 15% to 20%. Leveraging this technology, Yiyang Rubber Machinery established the first digital manufacturing base for internal mixers in China, becoming a benchmark for digital manufacturing in the country’s rubber machinery industry. Second is innovation in tire design, with the development of new structural designs for high-performance radial tires at the toe and shoulder areas to prevent delamination. A tire is a flexible casing made of a composite of various materials. Among all the quality issues related to tire refunds, delamination at the toe and shoulder areas accounts for over 80% of such cases; this problem severely affects the tire’s service life and driving safety, making it a major issue with radial tires. Faced with this challenge, the research team took on the task and determined that tire delamination is primarily caused by the tire’s geometric structure, physical discontinuities, as well as the combined effects of stress, fatigue, heat, and oxygen during use. Thus, the research team proposed and developed the \"thermo-mechanical coupling model for tire fatigue failure\" for the first time. By combining it with thermodynamic simulation software of their own development, they created innovative structural optimization methods and invented a series of new structures that address the problems of stress concentration and heat accumulation at the tire’s toe and shoulder areas, thereby establishing China’s unique strengths in terms of tire load-bearing safety on the international stage. Compared to international tire giants, tires using this structure exhibit a durability increase of over 20%, and a belt durability increase of over 3 times, resulting in world-leading product performance. Third is technological innovation in manufacturing processes, with the development of a comprehensive set of software packages for high-performance radial tire production processes. The tire manufacturing process is also an important factor affecting tire quality. Unstable quality batches of the compounded rubber, as well as microdefects in the rubber semi-finished products such as pores, impurities, and gels, are the fundamental causes of tire delamination and a reduction in tire durability and load-bearing capacity. The existing tire manufacturing technologies struggle to meet a range of requirements, including the quality stability of high-performance radial tires, as well as intelligent production and digital management. Based on these requirements, the research team worked together diligently to develop a digital design and management platform for the entire life cycle of tires. They created a set of processes for intelligent manufacturing, and established a technical framework and workflow for tire production that encompasses intelligent design, intelligent control, and intelligent manufacturing. A pilot line for green tire intelligent manufacturing was set up, and this technology was put into industrial use.