Goodyear and NASA develop lunar Spring Tyre
A new Spring Tyre developed by NASA and Goodyear was installed on NASA’s Lunar Electric Rover test vehicle and put through its paces at the Johnson Space Center’s “Rock Yard” in Houston. The new Spring Tyre is meant to carry much heavier vehicles over much greater distances than the wire mesh tire previously used on the Apollo Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV).
What exactly is a Spring Tyre? No, it’s not a seasonal tyre like winter tyres. It’s actually a tyre that uses 800 load bearing springs. The spring design contours to the surface on which it’s driven to provide traction. The energy used to deform the tyre is returned when the springs rebound. This design does not generate heat like a normal tyre. Lead innovator Jim Benzing from Goodyear said the tyre design is extremely durable and energy efficient.
Traditional rubber tyres have little utility on the moon, thus the use of wire mesh tires and soon, the Spring Tyre. Rubber properties vary significantly between the extreme cold and hot temperatures experienced in the shaded and directly sunlit areas of the moon. Unfiltered solar radiation (the moon has no atmosphere) also degrades rubber, and rubber tyres also run the risk of deflation as it needs to be filled with air. With the Spring Tyre, there is no single point of failure. A hard impact that may cause the rubber tyre to puncture and deflate will only affect one spring out of the 800 load-bearing springs on a Spring Tyre.
What this extended carrying distance and capacity means is that broader exploration of the moon will be enabled and hopefully it will eventually lead to the development and maintenance of a lunar outpost.
Perhaps one day all of this research will end up improving the way we design our vehicle’s contact patches. Michelin has also toyed with the idea of a new type of wheel called the Tweel and it recently announced a new lunar wheel based on the tweel.
Look after the jump for a NASA video on the new Spring Tyre.
August 5, 2009 @ 1:38 am
Superb Hi-Tech material….Gud Job…
August 5, 2009 @ 3:15 am
tyres is seriously one of the most static tech nowadays… every tyre manufacturer improves the tyre compound or thread pattern… but the design never goes away from using air and rubber since car is sold i think… maybe one day we wont need rubber tyres with air or to lay tarmax road anymore…
August 5, 2009 @ 8:33 am
i think this tyre has 2-3 times the weight of a normal tyre. that’s a lot of unsprung weight. unless they use some kind of lightweight material for the springs, it could only be used by offroad vehicles..
August 5, 2009 @ 8:48 am
Great Dunkin Donuts, can we have some demo tyres for my worksites? My tyres’ costs are killing me.
August 5, 2009 @ 9:04 am
High Tech nya!!!!!
August 5, 2009 @ 9:24 am
I doubt you can drift in these wheels…
August 5, 2009 @ 9:47 am
must be much more expensive than F1 tyres….
August 5, 2009 @ 9:57 am
Does these spring tyre get rusty easily? u know lah our country always rain and flood.. also high humidity..who know…
August 5, 2009 @ 10:34 am
Above:
At the moment we still not have rain problem in lunar or Mars.
August 5, 2009 @ 1:06 pm
You guys know that these hi-tech tyres used OUTSIDE EARTH?
August 5, 2009 @ 3:10 pm
Ronaldo lives on the moon u knoe…
August 5, 2009 @ 4:43 pm
good news for “mat gian”…
August 5, 2009 @ 5:25 pm
Cool, then we will have endless tyre shelf life. Then no one will bother to get their tyre repair again.
August 5, 2009 @ 5:32 pm
The fine grain of lunar soil will get into the spring and the vehicle will dragged into a quagmire. Anyway, lunar rover get flashy wheels!
August 5, 2009 @ 5:32 pm
it will collect dirts and makes our road and highway cleaner… and of course mat rempit will loves this kind of tyre…
August 6, 2009 @ 12:21 pm
armandd said,
August 5, 2009 @ 8:33 am
i think this tyre has 2-3 times the weight of a normal tyre. that’s a lot of unsprung weight. unless they use some kind of lightweight material for the springs, it could only be used by offroad vehicles..
_______________________________________________________________________
dude, moon’s gravity is only about 17% of earth’s gravity. that’s why the tyres need to be heavier.