Tweel:the Latest in Tyres!

TWEEL, THE LATEST IN TYRES
The pneumatic tyre has been around for over a hundred years. The original wheel was straight
off the buggy. Wooden spokes and wooden rim with a solid rubber covering the rim. The tongas
in India still use such wheels.
The Michelin brothers, Andre and Edouard, were the first to use an air-filled tyre. It was used
for the first time on a race car built by the Michelin brothers.
After the introduction of the pneumatic tyre, with a cross ply construction, the Michelin
company came out with the radial tyre. This was further improved by the tubeless tyre, which
is the ultimate in tyre technology today.
Michelin engineers at their Technology Centre in the US are working on. a revolutionary
concept called the ‘tweel’. While tyres are usually mounted on a metal rim to make a wheel, tweel
is a combination of a tyre and a wheel. And guess what, it is not pneumatic – it contains no air.
This revolutionary wheel, which is a rubber tread bonded to the hub with flexible spokes, is a
single unit wheel but in four pieces. The hub is made of polyurethane as one unit and the spokes
are flexible. They are fused with the tread, which can change shape and absorb shocks and
retain its original shape with the greatest of ease and almost instantly. Then a sheer band and
finally a rubber layer is wrapped around the circumference. This is what touches the tarmac
and provides the grip expected of a tyre.
Even without air, tweel  still has all the characteristics of conventional tyres, like road holding,
load-carrying capacity, comfortable ride and resistance to real hazards. The tweel has been
. driven over the spikes that the police use at road blocks, and it kept going; Of course, the torture
test will be Indian road conditions.
The advantage with tweel is that you will neither have to carry a spare wheel nor will you be
changing a dirty muddy wheel on the way to a party on a dark rainy night. No more punctures!
As regards the tread, it will last two to three times longer than the current radial tyres we are
used to. And now hear this. When it does wear out it can be retreaded like the conventional tyre,
claims Michelin.
A typical tyre in use today has 23 components, the tweel has just four. This could reduce the
cost of production eventually. Certainly three times the lifespan of today’s tyres, the tweel will
be cost-effective, too. It will also eliminate the installation of air-pressure monitors (air-
checkers) which will soon be mandatory on all new vehicles in the US.
Michelin has high expectations from the tweel. Apart from its acceptance by manufacturers of
passenger cars the tweel will find usage in the aircraft as well.