Airless Tires Exist and Are More Effective Than Regular Ones During the last 100 years people have been using cushions of air encased in rubber for their vehicles. Such technology proved it’s efficiency, however the Michelin company has released a new concept – the Tweel Airless Tire. Michelin first announced the Tweel in 2005. Actually the name is a combination of the words “tire” and “wheel” as the traditional wheel hub assembly is not used in the Tweel. A solid inner hub is attached to the pin, surrounded by polyurethane spokes. The shift poles are stretched out on the pins, forming in such way an external edge of the tire – part, which comes in contact with the road. The expansion of the shift zone on the spokes substitutes the air tension in the traditional wheels. After that treads are attached to the shear bands. The Tweel looks like a huge futuristic bicycle wheel. When wheels come in contact with road, the spokes compensate the force the same way as the air tension does in the pneumatic tires. The tread and the shear bands deform the curve of the spokes temporally, returning back to the initial phase after that. The Tweel tires can be made with different spokes tension, thus improving the car handling. The transversal stiffness of new tires is also adjustable. The car owner adjusts the tires as needed once they are manufactured. For testing, Michelin fitted out new tires for Audi A4. As a result, they received positive remarks – the car was much easy handled with Tweel tires then with the pneumatic ones. Because of better road traction, the Tweel tires will reduce fuel flowing rate, leading to the better economy and ecology preservation. As the production of the Tweel tires is on the initial phase Michelin are planning to improve the concept.
Posted on: Tue, 09 Jul 2013 17:45:13 +0000
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