Fisher: Innovative wheel design could revolutionize tire industry

TROY, Mich. — Did you know that the wheel was invented more than 5,000 years ago?

It is uncertain exactly what culture invented the wheel, but it is believed to have been first used in the late Neolithic period (3500 B.C.) in ancient Mesopotamia primarily for spinning pottery.

It wasn't until around 300 years later that someone figured out it would be good to use on wheelbarrows and then chariots.

Since then, technological advancements have been made in the design of wheels, and stone has given way to wood, steel and aluminum since Roman technicians were probably filing numerous workman's comp claims for back injuries every time they had to change a stone wheel.

By comparison, the tire is a relatively new invention.

Just 173 years ago, in 1844, Charles Goodyear invented vulcanization to produce rubber tires, and in 1846 Scottish engineer Robert William Thomson invented and patented his pneumatic tire design.

Unfortunately, his idea was well before its time and not a commercial success. (Everyone thinks that John Boyd Dunlop invented and patented the pneumatic tire in 1887, but in 1891 this patent was invalidated in favor of the earlier Thomson patent.)

In 1888, Michelin Tire Co. was launched in France. In 1890, Dunlop began production of pneumatic tires in Ireland, and in 1898, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. was founded in Akron.

Since then, the pneumatic tire has continued to evolve to the technologically advanced product it is today, but essentially it has remained at its foundation essentially the same: made of vulcanized rubber, pneumatic and black and round.

If you had to design a tire and wheel assembly from scratch today, what would it look like?

Forget rubber. Forget pneumatic tire design. Forget it having to be individual wheel and tire components.

Think outside the box. How would you design a tire/wheel assembly that is capable of carrying heavy loads, operating at high speeds, is long wearing and provides good ride and traction but is totally different from tires that we know today?

Well, if you are stopping to think about it now, it'll be years before you finish reading this article.

Fortunately, someone else with way more smarts and education has taken on this challenge and done the innovative thinking for you and me already, and the idea he has come up with is quite novel and exciting.

In fact, it could revolutionize the whole tire industry as we know it.

In 2011, Zoltan Kemeny patented his first Air Suspension Wheel (ASW) design, a tire and wheel component that looks nothing even remotely like tires and wheels we ride on today.

Mr. Kemeny has five Ph.D degrees in surveying, architectural, civil, structural and seismic engineering and holds 280 patents in the fields of seismic, mechanical, structural, civil and earthquake engineering, as well as in medical electronics, semiconductors, control systems, green energy, engine technology and optics.

His story is very interesting. He was born and educated in communist Hungary and was educated and taught at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics for 10 years.

He escaped to Spain from communist Hungary in 1981, and in 1983 he was granted political asylum in the U.S., where he now lives in the Phoenix metropolitan area and is president of Global Air Cylinder Wheels.

Unique invention

His invention, the air suspension wheel (ASW) has a round, rigid rim made of steel, which houses its own suspension made up of non-radial shock-absorbing air cylinder shocks that are attached to the rim and transfer torque between the hub and rim.

The shocks are pressurized with dry air or nitrogen. The photo above shows an ASW with 12 compressed-gas-type shocks that do not generate heat. The load on the hub uniformly compresses the shocks under the hub as the wheel turns and decompresses the shocks above.

So while the shocks deflect greatly, the rim does not. This suspension replaces the flexing sidewalls of pneumatic tires to provide a comfortable ride even on very rough terrain.

The suspension system in the wheel can be made harder or softer depending on the application simply by adjusting the pressure in the shocks.

The sidewall is bolted on and can be made of steel or armored for military applications. The sidewall material is customizable and can be specifically made for the application, so if a different material is required, it can be provided too.

The sidewall hermetically seals the internal shocks from dust, mud, snow, ice and water. The air cylinders themselves are sealed for life.

The tread is made up of many individually replaceable, bolt-on, steel reinforced tread blocks (gripping bars) that are bonded to a hard polyurethane extrusion cover.

ASWs that are driven on hard pavement at elevated speeds for extended periods of time need a polyurethane ribbed layer to protect the road from damage, especially if heavy loads are carried. Military vehicles would definitely need polyurethane tread blocks.

Stronger road grip and traction can be achieved using cast-iron gripping bars, which are also available. Treads last three to five years depending on road conditions and use, but the plates can be removed and retreaded with polyurethane and installed back on the wheel.

Retreaders may look forward to having a new product to include in their retread portfolios.

ASW advantages

The ASW suspension provides up to two times the suspension deflection, two times the load-bearing capacity and five times the impact resistance of the rubber tire it replaces.

The traction provided by ASWs is affected by the weight of the vehicle. Also winding up the cylinders will affect traction as well.

The weight of an air suspension wheel is close to the same as a pneumatic tire it replaces, so there are no worries about having to reduce loads due to increased vehicle weight. There also is no speed limit to which ASWs must be restricted.

As far as maintenance goes, the nitrogen in the air cylinders should be replaced every five to six years. This is done by removing a sidewall to get to the cylinders.

During this time, the air-cylinder seals and wipers should be checked, and the rod ends should be greased as well. There is no need to worry about inflation pressure or tire balance as is currently required with pneumatic tires since there is no air pressure to maintain and the suspension system automatically balances itself.

There are several additional benefits to this design. The first is reduced rolling resistance.

Replacing a standard tire/wheel assembly with an air suspension wheel can reduce rolling resistance by as much as 30 percent, an improvement that could yield fuel savings of 3 to 12 percent. Softer ASWs save more fuel than harder ones.

ASWs are impervious to sidewall cuts, gunfire, explosives and knives. Tire fires are a thing of the past, too, since there is nothing that can ignite and feed a fire like rubber does, and it just isn't possible for an ASW to blow out.

There is no need for disposal concerns either since ASWs are 100-percent recyclable, and there is less chance of sinking and skidding on ice, snow, mud and sand with their flow-through tread design.

Finally ASWs roll dirt roads smooth, resulting in less road maintenance.

The big advantage of ASWs is that they last as long as the vehicle and can be amortized over years rather than treated as consumables.

Currently, they are best used on off-road vehicles in mining, construction, agriculture, forestry and in the military. The initial target market for ASWs is giant mining truck and wheel-loader tire replacement with air-suspension steel wheels (51-, 57- and 63-inch rim sizes, 9-13 feet OD).

On mining trucks, vehicle life is typically 20 years — assuming they are maintained as already noted — as compared with eight months on average for a rubber tire.

Even at a price of three times the cost of a comparable rubber tire's price, the return on investment is terrific.

It is like buying three sets of tires and getting 27 more set for free. On off-the-road equipment, this is a no-brainer,

A prodigious inventor

The original air suspension wheel invented in 2011 originally was designed for agricultural vehicles. However, Mr. Kemeny has not been sitting on his hands or his head for the last six years.

In 2012, he patented the air suspension star wheel and spare wheel for passenger cars. In 2013, he patented the Stealth Security Wheel with run-flat capabilities.

In 2014, he designed an air-suspension wheel for construction equipment and in 2015, a wheel specifically for Caterpillar mining and construction equipment.

This year he is completing an ASW design for drag race cars, in 2018 his design for military vehicles will be completed, in 2019 aircraft landing gear ASWs should be finished and in 2020 his attention will be on Formula 1 race car ASWs that can run at speeds of 175-180 miles per hour.

You may be thinking that ASWs will never see the light of day on commercial trucks and buses. However, technology is rapidly changing in this market, too.

Autonomous vehicle manufacturers are not looking at automatic tire inflation systems and tire pressure monitoring systems for the vehicles they are designing. They are looking at tire/wheel technologies that don't require inflation pressure at all.

There are many scenarios that will demand airless tires/wheels. Imagine a line of six platooning trucks that all come to a complete stop because one tire on one vehicle went flat. That's not going to be acceptable.

Or autonomous trucks that do almost everything by themselves automatically, but the driver still has to babysit his vehicle's tires. I don't think so.

The world slowly advanced from the stone wheel invented 5,000 years ago, and pneumatic tires have made mega technological strides in the last 173 years as advances in technology have sped up.

Now get ready for the next big thing in tire/wheel concepts as constantly evolving technology forces us all to think outside the box to face a brave new world.

Peggy Fisher is president of TireStamp Inc. and is based in Troy, Mich. She can be reached via e-mail at [email protected].