Hankook Tire to build €193m R&D centre

ERJ staff report (TP)

Seoul – Hankook Tire held a groundbreaking ceremony on 10 June for its planned R&D centre in Daejeon, South Korea.

The Hankook Technodome will provide new tire research and testing facilities, and with a total investment of KRW 266 billion (€193.4m), is projected to be completed by 2016.

The firm also plans a Test Engineering Center in Sangju which is expected to be completed by 2018 and will serve as a hub for tire evaluation technologies.

At present, there are already about 700 researchers at its current R&D centre in South Korea. This number will grow to about 1,000 researchers at the new Technodome.

The Technodome will have a floor space of 96,328 square metres and a total land area of 70,387 square metres. Inside the main research building, 90 separate laboratories will enable a wide range of R&D activities to be carried out simultaneously.

The new centre is designed by Foster + Partners, an architectural firm founded by Sir Norman Foster. Hankook said the British architect and his company are famous for “bold, future-oriented designs”.