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Yep - the Lunar Rover's "tires" were made out of aluminum, zinc-coated steel and titanium strands because rubber would disintegrate pretty quickly in space.
Eventually the supports bridging the tread will give out, causing same blow outs. How long this takes, who knows, but tread will probably be shot before it.
Well, this bad idea circles around every few years and dies because it's a bad idea.
The cheapest most reliable spring element in the tires of a vehicle is air. That's why it's the world standard. Ever since Dr. Dunlop figured out how to keep it in the tire.
Think about it: you can spend millions of dollars on R&D and process development to design airless tires that don't perform as well as the ones that contain air, but are way way more complex and expensive, all to save the $0.001 cost of compressing some air and pushing it into a tire.
They've been showing off airless tires for years.
Nothing ever comes of them because the price and ride quality suck.
We aren't too often on the same side of an issue, but I think you're completely right on this. There is simply no combination of technologies that provides the low cost, performance flexibility and ride comfort of pneumatic tires. And they've tried and tried and tried.
Look at the run-flat tires of a few years ago that people replaced in the first round. One of the major issues with tires is weight, and no solid or semi rigid tire is going to be as light as a pneumatic model.
Lots of beaches around here allow over-sand driving with a permit. But you need to air down your tires to 5psi or so to avoid getting stuck. Every summer, the place is filled with brand new AWD SUV's/trucks/jeeps/etc from those on vacation.
I suspect that the trial era will never get past relatively skinny, long-mileage, high-mileage light car tires - see any Prius, for example. It's even possible that they might succeed if they bring any advantage to this niche. And maybe commercial tires as well.
But they will simply never replace "performance" tires whether they're Goodyear F1's or Monster Mudders. Or just midsize all-weather SUV tires.
We aren't too often on the same side of an issue, but I think you're completely right on this. There is simply no combination of technologies that provides the low cost, performance flexibility and ride comfort of pneumatic tires. And they've tried and tried and tried.
Look at the run-flat tires of a few years ago that people replaced in the first round. One of the major issues with tires is weight, and no solid or semi rigid tire is going to be as light as a pneumatic model.
Big talk, big excitement, big deal.
the Billion dollar question is, at some point will they have MFG buy in? They did with run flats. At some point they redesign the suspension a bit so you don't suffer with the ride.
From what I recall, such ideas been bouncing around for quite few years by now... and we are still riding on regular tires. I'd say, don't hold your breath. They will likely be offered as "optional".
Otherwise, militaries use tires that can withstand direct projectile hit for over a century.
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