205
Bike tires made from NASA’s bizarre shape-shifting metal are now available to buy
(www.theverge.com)
this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2023
205 points (82.5% liked)
Technology
34780 readers
261 users here now
This is the official technology community of Lemmy.ml for all news related to creation and use of technology, and to facilitate civil, meaningful discussion around it.
Ask in DM before posting product reviews or ads. All such posts otherwise are subject to removal.
Rules:
1: All Lemmy rules apply
2: Do not post low effort posts
3: NEVER post naziped*gore stuff
4: Always post article URLs or their archived version URLs as sources, NOT screenshots. Help the blind users.
5: personal rants of Big Tech CEOs like Elon Musk are unwelcome (does not include posts about their companies affecting wide range of people)
6: no advertisement posts unless verified as legitimate and non-exploitative/non-consumerist
7: crypto related posts, unless essential, are disallowed
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
There have been solid, foam filled or gell filled bike tires for a long time.
The fundamental problem is that the ring of pressurized air in a pneumatic tire is a shock absorber. When you hit a bump the entire tire (even the part that isn't touching the ground) contributes to the dampening because it turns into a shock wave in the donut of air. When you switch to any sort of tire that doesn't have pressurized air in it, the dampening can only occur by deforming the tire in contact with the ground, and it's not going to be anywhere near as good. Typically you end up with a tradeoff between uncomfortable ride on the one side, and bottoming out on the rim and lots of rolling friction on the other.
I mean, these new tires do deform with the ground. That's the "revolutionary tech" they brag about; the rings are designed to compress a bit and deform to compensate for impact, but always bounce back to their original shape no matter how much force is exerted on them. So you get a simulated air pressure.
They aren't saying they don't. The foam and gel tires they mentioned also deform with the ground. Like you said, the rings only compress a bit at the site of the impact. Person you're replying to is pointing out that pneumatic tires disperse this impact across the whole tire
I haven’t looked at the numbers, but I’m willing to give these a chance. If they can make tires that are almost as good as air ones but require less maintenance, they’ll be worth it for some people. If those metal rings aren’t too stiff, it should work.
These are street tires. Unless you weigh like 10kg the pressurized air isn't doing much of anything for dampening.
[This comment has been deleted by an automated system]