00:00Okay, so this is in the early 80s, the first lunar vehicle, the one that's still on the moon right
00:08now.
00:09We're focusing in our group on the tires, and you can see how, in this case, the tires flex.
00:16You can also see the rooster tail behind the tires, and you can see how much dirt the tires are
00:24picking up,
00:25and when you're picking up dirt, you're burning energy, and those were all solar-powered.
00:30So energy is a very important commodity.
00:34So NASA came to us when I worked at Goodyear, came to us and said,
00:39we want to recreate this tire to do more tire mechanics works, tire, sand, dirt, rock interface.
00:49So we reproduced the exact tire that's still up on the moon right now.
00:54They came back to us and said, okay, now we want to go from a 50-pound load that goes
00:5920 kilometers
01:00to a tire that goes 2,000 kilometers and holds 550 pounds.
01:07And so, of course, what engineers do is they just beef up the product,
01:11and basically we made a Fred Flintstone tire.
01:15It was hard as a rock, and when you hit a rock on the moon with one-sixth of gravity,
01:22you get launched.
01:24Your astronauts get launched.
01:26Your millions of dollars of hardware gets launched.
01:28So we sort of had to go back to the drawing board.
01:31And we went back to the drawing board after quite a number of iterations.
01:35We came up with a spring tire.
01:38And basically this is a tire with springs all weaved together in a barrel shape,
01:43and you press the two ends of the barrel together, and all of a sudden it becomes a toroid shape.
01:48And the beauty of the structure is that when you go over a rock, it gives.
01:57And that's really important.
01:59So if I go over a rock and I have to lift the entire weight of the vehicle, then I'm
02:06using the energy.
02:07If the tire deforms over the rock, then I'm using far less energy.
02:12And, again, energy is really important.
02:14And you saw that that is a spring tire for simulation for Mars.
02:20So this is actually what the Mars Fetch Rover tire looks like.
02:25This is not actually the tire, but this is the concept behind it.
02:31When we tested this tire, we went to a simulated rock yard and tried to break the tire.
02:38We were somewhat successful at breaking the tire.
02:43And I met another person at NASA that had been spent 14 years working on shape memory alloy,
02:51which is a super elastic material.
02:54And basically if I took a, and this is shape memory alloy,
02:57if I did this with spring steel, it would stay in this shape.
03:04But this spring's right.
03:06It can take 80 times the strain or 80 times the bending force that a normal steel spring would take.
03:15I enjoy playing with that.
03:18I'm going to give him some context here.
03:20Okay.
03:20What's that?
03:21I'm going to provide a little context here for you.
03:24This is our chief engineer.
03:26So there's a lot of technical engineering talk he's going to give you here.
03:28I'm going to break it down a little more simple for them on what they just saw here.
03:33So what we are doing, this is built for the Artemis project for NASA for going to the moon,
03:39sending the first woman to the moon in 2025.
03:42So it's like an upgrade on that moon buggy you saw.
03:45And that rover you saw was a Mars Fetch Rover, which is scheduled for 2026.
03:50And it will have these tires on it.
03:53And it's made out of material called shape memory alloy, which is a super elastic material, nickel and titanium.
03:59And that's what he's explaining a little bit more because I saw some people were kind of lost.
04:03Yeah, okay.
04:04He gets like that sometimes.
04:05I'm a geek.
04:06I can't help it.
04:07So we're bringing this to earth applications.
04:09So this tire has no air in it.
04:12And it bounces just like a pneumatic tire.
04:16And again, if you can imagine, a slinky wrapped around the bead with some polymer on it without any air.
04:24Basically, this tire is virtually indestructible.
04:27And then to add to that, once that tire you would wear out a tread,
04:32then we don't want to throw away that shape memory alloy in that carcass.
04:37So all of our earth applications are now becoming retreadable.
04:42So when you wear out the tread, replace the tread, you keep your expensive tire, your shape memory alloy,
04:51which is expensive in the tire.
04:53And you could go, we expect to do at least five cycles on the carcass of the tire, everything underneath
05:01the tread.
05:03So instead of spending $100 to replace the tire, you're spending $10 to put a new tread on the tire.
05:10So it's an airless tire that never gets flat.
05:14So I'm sure most people in this audience have had a flat tire before, whether it's for your bicycle, car,
05:20truck.
05:20So we are putting out an airless tire to the consumer starting in January 2023.
05:25Hopefully, that's our target date.
05:27So that's why we're here in Paris.
05:29We're all throughout Europe.
05:31We have a wait list of about 5,000 cyclists right now.
05:34They cannot wait to have this kind of tire.
05:36It has shape memory alloy in it, does it get flat, fuel efficient, everything you can imagine to be the
05:44ultimate bike tire.
05:45That's it.
05:46Yeah.
05:47So the shape memory alloy also has very low energy loss.
05:51So if you're talking about riding a bicycle and you're pedaling along, and it's the difference between riding a flat
05:58tire and riding a 100-PSI tire, the same thing goes for truck fleets.
06:06It could go on airplane tires.
06:09I mean, there's no boundaries anymore.
06:13That's great.
06:13The beauty is the air is gone.
06:15So the weak point of the tire is now history.
06:19Yep.
06:20So that's it.
06:21I think our time is up.
06:23Okay.
06:23I have to speak tomorrow about all of this.
06:25So it'll be a real treat tomorrow.
06:26We have an astronaut tomorrow.
06:28Dad, if you want to know more gory details, we're right over there.
06:32We're right over there.
06:33Thank you, everybody.
06:34Thank you.
06:34Okay, guys.
06:35I know we've got one more minute.
06:36I love you guys to stick around.
06:38This is really, really great.
06:38So let me just ask this question.
06:40So this is a tire to replace car tires, this one?
06:45That particular tire is for the Mars Rover.
06:48It's for the Mars Rover.
06:49Okay.
06:49Okay.
06:49And that is for the lunar terrain vehicle, the moon buggy.
06:53Okay.
06:54But these are for space vehicles.
06:55But the technology could be used for vehicles here, down here, right?
06:58We're using the advanced space technology and bringing it down to Earth for commuter vehicles
07:04like bicycles, scooters.
07:06Okay.
07:06And then we're going to scale up to trucking, automotive.
07:09A little harder to make a car tire than a bicycle tire.
07:12A lot of rules and regulations, I heard.
07:14Okay.
07:14It's a lot of testing.
07:15The question I have about traction, because like on roads, when it's wet, or like, is
07:20that the same technology you're using on the bike?
07:22You're adding this layer on top?
07:24We're going to rub a tread on it.
07:25We'll have a polymer on it with a tread on it, right?
07:27Okay.
07:28And lunar applications or Mars applications or any applications where you're in sand,
07:33even if you're in the desert in the United States and you're doing a race or something,
07:38you could use these as is.
07:40Right.
07:40Because the sand traction of all these tires is off the charts good.
07:44Yeah.
07:45They're awesome.
07:45Well, listen, very, very interesting.
07:46Thanks for the presentation, guys.
07:48I look forward to seeing you again.
07:49Thank you.
07:49All right.
07:50Thank you, everyone.
07:50Smart tire, ladies and gents.
Commentaires