Tire + Wheel = Tweel

[Althornin]

If there are rubber sides on that thing it could be disintegrating internally and nobody would ever be the wiser until catastrophic failure occurs. Very dangerous, I think.

wow, just like a normal tire?

I don't get you guys. With zero knowledge of the stress test results and lifetime of the material (hell, you dont even know the material), and just your eyeballs, you are declaring this a "failure" "dangerous", etc.

I don't know either, but I'm not pretending that looking a few pictures of em on a car gives me the magical ability to decipher the most likely failure points and problems!

Unless they found some alien technology, I doubt these can survive long

and why is that?
You have NO idea what the material is, or how they are constructed - could it be that they thought of somethign you havent?

 

[_xxx_]

Well that's for sure

 

[Squeak]

The Lunar Rover had wiremesh weels. Thin titanium wires sealed in rubber would work pretty well on earth too I think.

 

[_xxx_]

That drove like 5 mph...

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Goodness gracious! Monseiur Michelin is intending to replace all solid rubber tyres on vehicles with tubes of air!? How on earth will a hollow tube filled with nothing but vapours be able to stand the weight and speed? No doubt too much acceleration will simply tear the walls from the tread, and they certainly won't grip as well! My Lord, I go all faint at the thought of what might happen should a sharp object puncture such an unfeasable device while travelling at the high speed of ten or fifteen miles an hour!

It's sheer madness I tell you, and an affront to God and the members of the Automobile Club!

 

[mr]

Truth

I thought about that too!

Really, we should wait for more information before it is declared a failure.
Don't forget there are plenty of uses for tires with all kinds of sizes and velocities, so they may turn out to be useful in even other areas than cars.

 

[MPI]

The Lunar Rover had wiremesh weels. Thin titanium wires sealed in rubber would work pretty well on earth too I think.

There was a prototype 12-15 years ago by a swedish inventor that used thin springy spokes with a threaded "rubber band" around it, for road use. Was tested in the auto press at the time and was apparently quite useable, dunno what the fatal drawback was, but my first concern was metal fatigue.

 

[RussSchultz]

dunno what the fatal drawback was

No bling.

 

[Squeak]

my first concern was metal fatigue.

Suspension springs? Valve springs? The only problem I can think of is extreme deformation, like if you hit the curb hard, then maybe that would permanently deform the metal.

 

[MPI]

my first concern was metal fatigue.

Suspension springs? Valve springs? The only problem I can think of is extreme deformation, like if you hit the curb hard, then maybe that would permanently deform the metal.

Coil springs aren't really the same thing, but then again I'm no metallurgist.

I wouldn't care so much about deformation in such a metal as I would worry about it snapping clean off, as tempered metals(such as those used in springs) do.

 

[Mintmaster]

What metals are you guys talking about? Those spokes are made of rubber as far as I can see. You talking about the old design?

As for material fatigue, well, materials have advanced a lot nowadays. The whole nanotechnology buzz is focused heavily in materials engineering. If you put sidewalls on, you can also control the atmosphere inside, reducing the kind of wear that makes erasers get really crappy after a few years. As for not being able to see inside, well, that's no different from current tires. You don't know what's going on inside, hence the blowouts.

If that's something they're claiming to be an advantage of the tweel, then they must have a pretty good idea about it's reliability. It's 5-10 years away, so there's lots of time for long term testing.

Guden, if one spoke goes out, it barely increases the load on the the others. Do you know how a bicycle wheel works? The axle hangs from the top (and not just the very top, but the top half). Otherwise the spokes would buckle. While the tire is not as rigid as a bike rim, the top will still carry most of the load. If one spoke breaks, there is minimally more stress on its neighbours.

As for _xxx_, . You think your general auto experience and knowledge of the tweel through an article and pictures makes you more qualified to evaluate this than the top researchers at Michelin? Give me a "brake".

Let me give you guys an example of "common sense" judgement of reliability. Any of you heard of DLP TV's? What do you think is more likely to fail, a mechanical mirror tilting 10,000 times per second for 100,000 hours? Or a solid state LCD pixel switching 60 times per second over the same time? Surprise, it's the latter.

 

[_xxx_]

Hey, sorry for having an opinion...

EDIT:
next time I meet someone from Michelin, I'll ask them about this.