Airless tires

About time these started showing up in commercial vehicles. This design has been around a long time, originally for military applications.
This was an ARL concept, actually :rockon: . Blast-resistant tires. One of the first prototypes is on display in a building at work.
 
What are the wheels made of ?? The shock absorbing ability looks good, I imagine a vehicle could have a stiffer or less flexy suspension, but still ride smoothy over rough/bumpy terrain. I also imagine too much power/torque/traction could destroy them or rip the hub from the driving surface?
 
It's a plasticky kind of polymer composite that feels almost like hard rubber. Aside from the mechanical design that allows the flex/structure, the real science and engineering "magic" is in the polymer structure so that it is just flexible enough to bend under the target weight and load distribution, but is stranded in the right orientation so that it can deal w/ potential shear forces etc.
Keep in mind that the force of that inner "wheel" is distributed across a whole lot of surface area and many contact points so any individual "spoke" isn't so much. That and the polymers are really, really strong.
 
Kevlar? Do they degrade or wear out w mileage/abuse?, and finally they look VERY expensive!! so i don't think I'll be putting any on my skateboard soon :lol:..............I saw some new bicycle wheels w similar design, 4 curved, flat, spoked wheels and a flexy rim that looked like it might change mountain bikes forever. they could loose heavy/ conventional shock absorbers/springs and still ride softly on rocks/bumps at speed.
 
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Need the air/floatation and sidewalls for nasty mud fer sure, that's why I said "some vehicles and terrain". High speed and shock- hard/bumpy might work well though.
 
mommucked said:
Need the air/floatation and sidewalls for nasty mud fer sure, that's why I said "some vehicles and terrain". High speed and shock- hard/bumpy might work well though.
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Not very stable at high speed, would probably not really balance out all that well.
I'd think something like rock crawling would be better.
 
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