AKRON (Oct. 22, 2014) — Goodyear will begin testing its Air Maintenance Technology (AMT) for commercial vehicles on U.S. trucking fleets in the next few months as part of a research project supported by U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Vehicle Technology.
Since 2011, Goodyear has been developing and testing AMT to aid in fuel savings and carbon dioxide reductions, while potentially improving tire life, casing durability and safety and eliminating need for manually inflating tires, the tire company said.
During the next 18 months, several trucking fleets in the U.S. and Canada will test AMT in their normal daily operations.
“This is an important milestone in the development of AMT for the commercial trucking marketplace,” said Joseph Zekoski, Goodyear's chief technical officer. “The tires equipped with AMT have performed well in testing, and we are pleased that so many of our fleet customers were eager to collaborate with us in the next phase of testing.”
AMT enables tires to remain inflated at a specified cold inflation pressure without the need for external pumps or electronics. The system utilizes peristaltic pump technology to automatically maintain tire pressure at fleets' desired levels. All components of the AMT system, including the pump, are fully contained within the tire.
“This phase of testing will go a long way in helping us determine when we can make this technology available in the commercial tire marketplace,” Mr. Zekoski said.
The DOE's Office of Vehicle Technology has provided a $1.5 million grant to assist in the Akron-based research, development and demonstration of the AMT system for commercial vehicle tires.
While still in development, AMT has been honored as an innovative technology by several publications:
- Car & Driver selected AMT as one of its 10 “most promising future technologies” in December 2011;
- Popular Mechanics named AMT a 2012 Breakthrough Award winner; and
- Time magazine recognized AMT as one of the “Best Inventions of the Year 2012.”