Innovation award for NASA and Goodyear

2nd Quarter 2011 News & events

NASA and Goodyear were recently honoured with the R&D 100 Award for an innovative, energy efficient, airless tyre that will not go flat and is capable of transporting large, long-range vehicles across the surface of the moon or Mars. The award is billed as ‘The Oscars of Innovation’.

The traditional rubber, pneumatic tyres found on Earth cannot be used on the moon because rubber properties vary significantly between the extreme cold and hot temperatures experienced. Furthermore, unfiltered solar radiation degrades rubber, and pneumatic tyres pose an unacceptable risk of deflation.

The Spring Tyre is constructed out of an innovative yet simple network of 800 interwoven load bearing springs. It is designed to carry much heavier vehicles over much greater distances than the wire mesh tyre previously used on the Apollo Lunar Roving Vehicle.

The tyre is extremely durable and energy efficient. The spring design contours to the surface to provide traction. All the energy used to deform the tyre is returned when the springs rebound and it does not generate heat like a normal tyre.

It does not have a single point failure mode. A hard impact that might cause a pneumatic tyre to puncture and deflate would only damage one of the 800 load bearing springs. Along with this ultra-redundant characteristic, the tyre has a combination of overall stiffness and flexibility, allowing the vehicle to travel fast over rough terrain with relatively little motion being transferred to the vehicle.

The tyre was installed on NASA’s Lunar Electric Rover test vehicle and performed successfully at the Rock Yard at the Johnson Space Centre. Ultimately it could allow for broader exploration and the eventual development and maintenance of planetary outposts. It might also have application on Earth.

For more information contact Lize Hayward, Goodyear Tyre & Rubber Holdings, +27 (0)41 505 5421, [email protected], www.goodyear.co.za

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