Humvee airless tire test

A test of the Non-Pneumatic Tire by Resilient Industries.

Modern pneumatic tires (PT) are the results of enormous progress in science, technology, and manufacturing process. However, they are still subjected to adverse problems that could compromise the road safety and lead to accidents of different severities. The source of hazard in PT is mainly due to their dependence on air. Therefore, by introducing the concept of non-pneumatic tires (NPT) such limitations can be avoided. Recently, the literature was enriched by several research works intended to develop NPT utilizing spokes as deformable members to produce a similar ride comfort as with the conventional PT.
However, most of these designs suffered from disturbing issues that prevented them from being widely marketed. Therefore, the main objective of this project is to develop a new model of NPT that would eliminate the hazards of conventional tires, and at the same time, be competitive with the few models of NPT already proposed by some tires companies. The proposed concept, based on the elastic sidewall, has gone through many stages of modifications until a final geometry-material combination was obtained.
The tire was manufactured using fiber glass composites and tested statically (off-road) and dynamically (on-road). The preliminary results were very promising as for a proof of concept.

The comfort and safety of driving a vehicle mainly depend on the good working states and the symbiosis between the components of the vehicle suspension system. A suspension system of any vehicle is composed of a shock absorber, a spring and most importantly a tire. The main objective of this trio is to isolate the occupants of the vehicle from any external disturbances caused by interaction with a roughened ground while permitting the driver to keep an efficient and safe control on his vehicle. If any one of these components is badly designed, manufactured, mounted or used, severe consequences could disturb the ride comfort of people inside the vehicle and even jeopardize their safety. As vehicles have become more robust, reliable and sophisticated, drivers became less aware of the importance
of their tires. Tires have significantly improved in terms of safety, performance and wear, but they still need more attention than most of the car components.
There are many factors that can result in a tire failure (puncture or blowout) or increase its probability. Such an unpleasant event can happen at any time when a tire loses suddenly or gradually its internal air pressure. This pressure drop prevents the tire from accomplishing its principal task; that is to support the weight of the vehicle and thus, make the driver fail to maintain a straight and safe trajectory which leads very frequently to a harmful car accident.