OTR Tyre Processing

OTR Tyre Processing Equipment handles the unique challenges of recycling off-the-road tyres from mining, construction, earthmoving, and agricultural machinery. These giant tyres — weighing up to 600kg or more — cannot be processed by standard tyre recycling equipment due to their sheer size, reinforced construction, and the forces required to cut through multiple steel belts and thick rubber compounds.

Gradeall manufactures specialist OTR cutting equipment including splitters, sidewall cutters, and shears that reduce massive tyres to manageable sections for transport, further processing, or disposal.

The OTR Tyre Challenge

Off-the-road tyres present recycling difficulties that standard equipment simply cannot address. Mining haul truck tyres can exceed 4 metres in diameter. Construction and earthmoving tyres contain heavy steel reinforcement designed to support enormous loads. Agricultural tyres come in unusual sizes and profiles. All require specialist equipment with the cutting force and physical capacity to handle these dimensions.

Leaving OTR tyres whole creates storage, transport, and disposal problems. A single mining tyre occupies the space of dozens of car tyres. Landfill sites increasingly refuse whole OTR tyres. Shredding facilities may lack equipment capable of processing them. The solution is on-site size reduction using purpose-built cutting equipment.

OTR Tyre Splitter

The OTR Tyre Splitter cuts large tyres in half along the tread section, creating two more manageable pieces. This primary cut allows access to the tyre interior for debris removal — OTR tyres often accumulate rocks, mud, and other material during service. Splitting also enables inspection of internal condition and separation of tread from sidewall sections for different processing routes.

OTR Tyre Sidewall Cutter

The OTR Tyre Sidewall Cutter removes sidewalls from the tread section, isolating the bead area that causes problems for conventional shredding equipment. The steel bead wire in OTR tyres is substantially heavier than in passenger tyres and can damage shredder blades or jam processing equipment. Removing sidewalls before shredding protects downstream equipment and improves processing efficiency.

OTR Shear

The OTR Shear cuts tyre sections into smaller segments suitable for handling, transport, or feeding into shredding equipment. After splitting and sidewall removal, the shear reduces remaining pieces to sizes that standard tyre processing machinery can accept.

Complete OTR Processing Systems

For operations processing significant OTR tyre volumes, we can supply integrated systems combining splitter, sidewall cutter, and shear equipment. This provides a complete size-reduction line taking whole OTR tyres through to processed segments ready for transport or further recycling.

Mining Tyre Recycling

Mining operations generate substantial OTR tyre waste from haul trucks, loaders, and excavators. Our equipment enables on-site processing, reducing transport costs and avoiding the challenges of moving whole tyres to off-site facilities. Processed sections can be transported more efficiently to specialist recycling facilities or prepared for approved disposal routes.

Construction & Earthmoving Applications

Construction sites, quarries, and earthmoving operations face similar challenges with worn tyres from bulldozers, scrapers, graders, and large loaders. On-site cutting equipment allows tyre disposal to be managed as part of normal site operations rather than requiring specialist collection of whole tyres.

Foam-Filled Tyre Processing

Many OTR applications use foam-filled tyres for puncture resistance in harsh environments. These present additional processing challenges due to the polyurethane filling bonded to the inner tyre surface. Our cutting equipment handles foam-filled tyres, enabling separation of rubber and filling material.

Material Recovery

OTR tyres contain significant quantities of recoverable materials. The heavy steel reinforcement has scrap value, whilst rubber can be processed into products including rubber crumb, mats, and civil engineering fill. The volume of material in each OTR tyre makes processing economically worthwhile even with the specialist equipment required.

For advice on OTR tyre processing equipment selection and system configuration, contact our technical sales team.