Tag Archives: Tire

This incredibly lightweight tire inflator is just as small as an AirPods Pro case

Posted on by

People have seemingly taken a greater liking for personal mobility these days, ranging from hulking motorcycles to sophisticated e-bikes to traditional yet versatile bicycles. Regardless of the type of two-wheeled transportation, they’re all bound by one common trait and the same weakness. They naturally rely on their wheels to get you places, and the ride is immediately over once you get a flat. You are unlikely to have a spare with you, and the nearest gas station might still be blocks away. You could bring an air pump with you all the time, but their convenience comes at the cost of portability and performance. Not unless you get this unbelievably small air pump that easily slips into your pocket while still delivering the air pressure your tires need, multiple times over.

Designer: MINI PUMP

Long gone are the days when bicycle tire pumps were tantamount to getting some exercise, coming in long metal cylinders that are just begging to be left behind at home. There are smaller versions these days, of course, that utilized motors to give your arms a break, but they’re still not that convenient to stow in small bags. Tiny electric pumps have started popping up left and right, but they sacrifice actual usefulness just to boast about their size.

The MINI PUMP seeks to address all those problems with a small package that belies its functionality. For an accurate size comparison, the MINI PUMP is just as small as the AirPods Pro case, the gold standard for pocketable accessories. At only 115g in weight, there’s no longer any reason for you to leave the house unprepared for any eventuality, especially when you can just slip this deceptively simple product into your pocket or your EDC kit. You might even want to leave one near your bike all the time, ensuring you’ll never panic ever again when you notice your flat tire.

Despite its unassuming size, the MINI PUMP is well equipped to inflate a wide variety of objects, not just tires. It can generate as much as 100 PSI of pressure, which means it can even pump motorcycle tires in a pinch. For an average 700x25C road bike tire, the MINI PUMP can put out 0 to 80 PSI in just 70 seconds so you’ll be back on the road in no time. With a 350mAh battery, you can inflate three road bike tires on a single charge. A unique design lets you swap out nozzles to be compatible with a variety of tire valves, including Schrader, Presta, and Dunlop.

The MINI PUMP can do more than just inflate tires though. It can also pump flattened balls or even blow away dust from camera lenses or hard-to-reach cracks. Its built-in battery charges from zero to full in just 25 minutes, so you won’t be wasting time waiting for your new traveling sidekick to be ready. Save yourself from the stress of having a flat tire or ball at the most inconvenient time and place with this small and lightweight MINI PUMP that packs a large punch, only $70 on Kickstarter.

The post This incredibly lightweight tire inflator is just as small as an AirPods Pro case first appeared on Yanko Design.

Transformable smart tire with concealed spikes is tailored for safe, all-season driving

Posted on by

The number of black ice-induced accidents has significantly spiked in the last five years owing to the perils of climate change. Rapid urbanization has also played its part in extreme weather events, and more instances of black ice forming on curved roads and bridges, thereby increasing the risk of fatalities when there’s no grip for vehicles to drive properly.

Unlike snow roads which are visible to the naked eye, black ice is indistinguishable from normal road conditions which makes it laden with danger at every corner. The only solution, to stay away from harm’s way is to put on a set of tires with spikes or put on tire chains. CONQUEROR tire designed in collaboration with the Nexen Tire Corporation (a world-leading South Korean tire maker) wants to change this, reducing the danger element to negligible.

Designer: Yuchan Ahn, HoChul Shin, Eunseok Seo and Korea Design Membership

The concept winter smart tire adapts to road conditions thanks to the embedded sensors. When slippery black ice or icy conditions are detected, the spikes are engaged for better grip without the riders needing to worry about anything. The design motivation for the tire’s shape comes from the snowflake crystals, and it’s not a mere penned concept. There are a number of deformation cylinders (shaped like crystals) on the surface of the tire giving way to the traditional air-injected mechanism of a normal tire.

Top of these little cylinders house the spikes and the rubber tread – with the spike controlling mechanism built into the casing to set into action, as soon as traces of icy conditions are detected. The bottom section of these cylinders has shock absorbers to absorb the impact of uneven road surfaces. The winter-optimized CONQUEROR tire is a very useful innovation that’s all set to hit the tarmac to prevent all the road chaos, and most importantly fatalities.

The post Transformable smart tire with concealed spikes is tailored for safe, all-season driving first appeared on Yanko Design.

Hankook reveals omnidirectional tire in line with luxurious level 5 autonomy of future vehicles

Posted on by

While the vehicles we ride have had mechanical and technological leaps in the last century or so, the good old tire that they ride on hasn’t changed much. Well, Hankook Tire is set to change that notion with a radically evolved design that’s destined to change the very basis of traveling from point A to B.

Their latest innovation dubbed the Wheelbot is a tire with omnidirectional freedom giving the vehicle riding on it more options of use. For example, traversing in tight spaces or even terrain that has no road. So, we are talking of a city commuter that’s ultra-swift, and at the same time capable enough to take on off-roading terrains.

Designer: Hankook Tire

According to the South Korea-based tire giant, the existing vehicles are highly restricted in movement because of the wheel structure. Wheelbot addresses this issue of limited space movement with multiple directional flexibility without any strings attached. As per the makers, “the usability and expandability of Wheelbot are limitless.”

The tire was revealed at the Design Innovation Day in Seoul where people could actually see the Wheelbot in action. At the event, Hankook Tire showed off its semi-autonomous and remote-controlled capabilities too as a part of the “Urban Reshaping” project. The fact that the wheel can be configured in different formats – combining different Wheelbots into one – gives vehicle manufacturers flexibility to manufacture customizable vehicles. Automobiles such as city pods, transport lorries, MUVs, or roadsters that’ll have a radically different look and function than what we are used to seeing currently.

This robotic wheel system developed in collaboration with Calmantech Corp. (robotics startup) was demonstrated on the company’s Space Shifting Mobility (SSM), the new mobility concept that is a combination of the sphere wheel system and van-sized Pod spaces. The core idea is to configure the concept depending on need – be it at the airport, in medical institutions, or work environment.

The post Hankook reveals omnidirectional tire in line with luxurious level 5 autonomy of future vehicles first appeared on Yanko Design.

Guys Successfully 3D Print a Functional Wheel Rim

Posted on by

Because 3D printing offers a glimpse into the future, Jón Schone of YouTube channel Proper Printing used the technology to print a car rim that can successfully be driven on without failing and causing a horrific accident. And, after some trial and error (the first prototype failed due to layer separation caused by the tire pressure stretching the rim), he was finally able to produce a functional rim. Still, would I trust my life to it? Absolutely not.

You know, in the future, we won’t even have spare tires; we’ll have onboard robots that can manufacture any broken car part in a matter of minutes so we can quickly be on our way without getting a tow truck or shifty backwoods mechanic involved. Will I live to see that future? Probably not, but maybe my grandchildren would if I had any.

Last weekend, I actually told my wife I was thinking about buying a 3D printer, and she immediately asked what I need one for. It took some time to explain that it wasn’t so much a need as it was a desire, and that’s when she shut down the idea. Now I’m left with no choice but to buy one behind her back and set it up in the guest bedroom closet without her knowledge.

[via TechEBlog]

Bike tires that last a lifetime without any puncture or degradation are inspired by NASA’s rover technology

Posted on by

Just when you thought tubeless bike tires are the best thing on the road for your bicycle, the next revolution has arrived. The very technology that NASA uses in its Mars rover and lunar mission, has now made it through to the consumer-oriented arena in the form of METL tire developed by the startup Smart Tire Company, who’ve licensed the technology to bring to the bicycle lanes in the near future. The airless METL bike tires are crafted out of the Shape Memory Alloy Radial Technology (SMART) – made from strong (like titanium), lightweight yet ultra-elastic material (like rubber) known as NiTinol+. This magic material according to Smart Tire Company, “rearranges its molecular structure when you bend it, but instantly goes back to its original shape, perfectly.”

In fact, these tires are so good, they can last your bicycle’s lifetime – meaning you don’t ever need to bother about flat, tires, or ones with the tread wearing – needing to change to a new one. They are basically, shape-memory tires that have almost 30 times the recoverable strain limit of the steel, thereby making them ideal for any kind of rough terrain. The metal of these tires will not come in contact with the tarmac as they will be coated with a new kind of rubber-like material called Polyurethanium, which’s crafted for all king of weather conditions and has a long-lasting tread and grip for superior handling.

Since the tires are going to be targeted towards next-gen buyers, the design is as important as function. Therefore, Smart Tire Company has made it a point to embellish them in white, gold, silver, and metallic blue colorways. They plan to bring the METL tires to the consumer market in early 2022, but there is no word about the cost of these tires yet. As per Earl Cole, CEO of The Smart Tire Company, “The unique combination of these advanced materials, coupled with a next-generation, eco-friendly design make for a revolutionary product.” This shape memory alloy technology looks promising and will make it beyond just the bicycle tires for sure.

As Santo Padula, a materials science engineer at NASA pointed out, “Shape memory alloys look extremely promising in revolutionizing the entire terrestrial tire industry.” In fact, that’s just a starting point and these could make it to the four-wheelers and commercial vehicles – changing the landscape of commuting to another dimension. After all, who doesn’t want to fit their bicycle, car, or truck with wheels that will never go flat or need to be changed in a lifetime!

Designer: Smart Tire Company





Microsoft and Bridgestone launch real-time tire damage system

Posted on by
As vehicle diagnostics and real-time safety advisories get smarter, there’s not much your car (assuming it’s a newer model, of course) can’t tell you about what’s going on under the hood. Until now, however, there has been one element of vehicle main...

The Dandelion is an all-terrain tire concept that has 72 legs instead of an air-filled tube

Posted on by

If you think of it, your legs are the perfect transportation medium. Aside from the fact that they run on your energy, your legs can actually conquer any terrain. They can go up and down inclined surfaces just fine, can walk with relatively the same speed on pebbles, gravel, concrete, sand, and mud. Take that logic and bring it to the wheel and you’ve got the Dandelion, a low-maintenance tire concept that uses 72 independent legs/pins attached to a rotating hub to work efficiently on any sort of terrain. The pins compress inwards when pressure is applied, allowing the tire to flex and bend in a variety of ways depending on how rough the surface beneath it is. “By enabling increased ground contact, the tyre performs well even on rough roads and in off-road environments and requires almost no maintenance, maximising a vehicle’s operating capability”, say the designers behind the wheel’s unusual form.

The individual pins move up and down independently, allowing for more surface area to be in contact with the ground, multiplying the car’s efficiency. This makes the car relatively safer too, escaping the chances of a punctured or blown-out tire. The individual pins/legs are detachable and can be replaced when broken, making it lower maintenance than current tires that need to be painstakingly patched when punctured, or thrown away when worn out.

The Dandelion is a winner of the Red Dot Design Concept Award for the year 2019.

Designer: NEXEN Tire

Pirelli app gives track day drivers a digital pit crew

Posted on by
Gone are the days when racing sports simply involved cars hurtling around a track as fast as possible. Now, there are eye-watering volumes of data being processed every second, providing deep metrics and guidance on everything from tire pressure to t...

DARPA’s wheel switches shapes with terrain!

Posted on by

Designed as a collaborative project between Carnegie Mellon University’s National Robotics Engineering Center and DARPA researchers, the Reconfigurable Wheel Track, dubbed the RWT, helps vehicles move on any sort of terrain… and it does so in spectacular fashion, by shapeshifting to turn from a rotary wheel to a track system.

On much harder terrain, the RWT works like a regular wheel, rotating to help move the vehicle from point A to B, but the minute it reaches terrain that’s softer, like mud, silt, snow, or sand, the RWT shapeshifts (within as quick as 2 seconds) to a triangular format, and the rubber grip around the tire runs like a conveyor track you’d see on tanks. The wheel ultimately allows vehicles to move around effectively, regardless of the terrain type or the weather, and will see itself being used on vehicles for defense purposes.

And while the GIF below definitely makes me go “whoa”, my favorite wheel reinvention will probably still be NASA’s incredibly light and versatile chain-link wheel.

Designers: DARPA & Carnegie Mellon University NREU

darpa_rwt_1