"non-pneumatic tire" (or tyre if you're English) – very exciting for non-latex based rubber
Why am I so excited by these tyres? I was going to ask you/me/the ether that very question but I’ve answered it even before I managed to tap it out into Movable Type. I’m excited by these tyres because they’re completely brilliant. They’re cool. I hate to use that word but they are. They’re cool.
These tyres are cool because they’re a game changer – another phrase I can’t stand. Unfortunately, the game in this case happens to be military warfare but it seems some good can come out of the practise of killing people.
The NPT has been developed by Resilient Technologies as part of their $18m grant from the Pentagon (I wonder if they’d give me one of them?) and it’s made of a honeycomb structure that’s enough to hold up the weight of a Humvee with enough give for a little cushioning. Oh, and if you don’t believe how tough honeycombs are, just go and pick a fight with a bee. They is from the streets I tell you.
No, but seriously folks, put kinks in flat materials, join them together and you start to give them some serious bonus physical properties.
The NPT may be a nice way of never having to worry about getting a flat again while at home but, in a warzone, it means not being a sitting duck when you get hit by a roadside bomb. The honeycomb structure can lose 30% of its joins and it’ll still work properly.
There’s no plans to bring this tech to consumers – probably because there’s a large suitcase of cash winging its way over to Resilient Tech, courtesy of some valve manufacturers, as we speak – but I do love a good bit of physics. Bad physics can stay well away though. I’m still baffled by logic gates.
(via Gizmo Watch)
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2 comments
Old concept from the beginning of the wheel, but changes are what coming if allowed. A Nanocarbonized rubber was a excellent prospect and did work and found to be superior in the tire usages (damn near a lifetime tire)and would have been best overall but the usage has effects like that of asbestos to the lungs or at least that is what was said to shoot the idea down.
A magnetic coil and pistoned suspension would relieve the effect of the “ruff ride” on a non-pnematic tire or even a pnematic but again the concept that I drew would again destroy another product that we depend on to fail and provide jobs. Any way afetr so many the prospect of profit dramatically drops. Our livelyhood depends upon new ideas and the failures thereof. Cooper Tire, I send my congrats on obtaining the contract to build these NPTs shown above.
There’s nothing new in the concept. The traditional problem with NPTs has always been the fact that the ride experience is shiat comfort wise. We prefer pnuematic tires because it absords a lot of the otherwise harsh shocks that riders would feel.
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