Since Thompson and then Dunlop first introduced the pneumatic tire in the 1840s and 1880s, there has been a radical change in the design. From the early car tires which were essentially just a piece of rubber hose wrapped around a wheel and sealed shut, first were added valves. Soon after the techniques of hardening rubber such as vulcanization were perfected, allowing tread patterns to be imprinted onto, cut into, or molded into the tire.
Soon the inner tube concept was invented, allowing a wheel with a rim that wasn’t airtight to be used, which meant lighter, spoked wheels became the norm until quite recently. Cars were able to start going comfortably and safely much faster than a person only because of the invention of the pneumatic car tire.
Modern tires have usually abandoned spokes and inner tubes, in favor of a sealed rim, and the fabric and metal that is layered into a modern car tire make the sidewalls stronger, allowing them to be only a partial tube in themselves.
Different types of rubber including synthetic compounds, and many different construction techniques mean that tires are almost as varied as the cars themselves.
Asymmetric and multi-radial tread patterns, along with specially designed structures allowing maximum road contact for grip and steering are common. In certain applications such as the military, we can also find tires that don’t go flat when they are punctured or shot. There are special car tires designed for snow, ice, rain, mud, sand, high speed and any other specialist application you can think of, but the most numerous type of car tire is the general purpose road tires we probably all have on our cars.
Car tire technology is currently going through significant changes due to the environmental problems associated with manufacture and disposal, but so far little progress has been made. Time will tell.
Nuno R Batista
http://www.budgettyres.org/articles/car-tires
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