Dunlop Research Centre / Techology Division Archive

Title: Dunlop Research Centre / Technology Division Archive
FORMAT: Afternoon Technical Discussion Meeting
Venue: IOM, LONDON
Date: Friday 28th June 2002

The Dunlop Research Centre, later Technology Division, in Birmingham was a substantial organisation, and made a major contribution to applied research and development of rubbers and other polymers over the years in which it flourished. Contributions ranged from development of rubber-based automotive suspension systems for British Leyland, tyre-related aspects and analyses, offshore oil hoses, brake hoses, belting, Dunlopillo foam for mattresses and aircraft brakes to improved tennis rackets and balls, and beyond. Although some of the scientific work has appeared in the literature, internal laboratory reports, many focused on the activities of Dunlop manufacturing divisions, were also produced and contain information of technical and historical interest. Through the altruism of John Cook of Silvertown UK Ltd, the Institute of Materials acquired a substantial archive of this material, amounting to some thousands of reports.

The Rubber in Engineering Committee organised this meeting to provide an opportunity to view the archive, and to help the IOM in making decisions about the future management of it. Access to the reports was possible, as the IOM library staff were active in performing a lengthy cataloguing duty of the material.

The discussion was led by Dr Bob Campion, a former employee at Dunlop Research Centre and currently at Materials Engineering Research Laboratory (MERL) Ltd in Hertford. After a brief presentation on the Research Centre and his background to the reports, there was the opportunity to examine the archive.