The main advantage of non-pneumatic tires (NPT) is that they cannot go flat, and so far, they have been used much less common, unlike the air filled tires. You can find them on different smaller vehicles like golf carts or lawn mowers, as well as on heavy machines that are operating on construction sites or at building demolition, where the chance to get a flat tire is very likely to happen. Unlike the regular, pneumatic tires, this type of tires have higher rolling resistance and less suspension, as well as the heat ostentation that happens whilst they are driven, so these are some of the problems why they have not been used for `regular vehicles` yet. But they are one step closer to become a full scale production reality. And the non pneumatic tires have a lot of environmental benefits when compared to the regular conventional tires. Recent studies confirm that the non pneumatic tires are energy efficient for manufacturing and are being easy to recycle.
The non pneumatic tweel tires have been put to a couple of different test. The test included: durability, hardness, slalom, stability and of course speed. These tires have been used on an electric car which was able to hit 81 miles per hour without damaging the tires. They were able to match the performance of a regular conventional tire in all of the other tests. But further results about the non pneumatic tires are still not being revealed.
But Michelin is working on developing a new tire that will combine wheel and an integrated tire called “Tweed” (the name is a combination of the words `tire` and `wheel`) that will also work without air and it will be used for everyday vehicles. According to the company, Tweel will be great for carrying load, shock absorbing by combining many features of conventional tires.
The primal model was meant strictly for the Humvee vehicles, but very soon they started to implement them for regular trucks like Dodge Ram and others. What is your opinion? Feel free to comment.
Check out the video and see what it looks like. You can read more info about this Non-Pneumatic Tires Here!
