The present invention is in the field of non-pneumatic tires and related technologies. The application scope includes low-cost, efficient designs for tires. In manufacturing, the field includes high-pressure thermoplastic injection, reaction injection, and cast molding. The material science field involves thermoplastic and thermoset elastomers having specific nonlinear mechanical properties.
Pneumatic tires offer high load capacity per unit mass, along with a large contact area and relatively low vertical stiffness. High contact area results in the ability to both efficiently generate high tangential forces and obtain excellent wear characteristics. However, pneumatic tires are also prone to flats. Well known in the patent literature, non-pneumatic tires offer flat-free operation, yet generally contain some compromise.
Higher cost is often associated with non-pneumatic tires when complex assemblages of composite materials are used. Related to this, production methodologies can be laborious. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 7,201,194 discloses a non-pneumatic tire containing an annular band which is comprised of at least two inextensible membrane-like reinforcing layers, which are separated by an elastomeric layer. This annular band is then affixed to a central wheel via flexible spokes in a web design. This composite composition suggests a complex manufacturing process. High production costs could be involved.
Conversely, U.S. Pat. No. 6,615,885 discloses a non-pneumatic tire that can be fabricated without composite reinforcement. The design consists of a rim connected to a hub via curved spokes. The spokes are sufficiently rigid such that loads are transmitted via bending. Such a structure works acceptably well for very small tires and low loads; however, one skilled in the art of non-pneumatic structures can show that this technological approach would result in high tire mass for applications supporting higher loads in larger-scale applications.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,013,939 discloses a non-pneumatic tire consisting of a simple elastomeric band, a hub, and connecting spokes which act primarily in tension. As with U.S. Pat. No. 6,615,885, this solution works for very small tires and low loads. However, at higher loads with larger tire dimensions, one skilled in the art of non-pneumatic tire design can show that the contact area characteristics become strongly degraded. This would result in a loss of performance.
US Patent Application US2012/0234444 A1 discloses a non-pneumatic tire with an annular reinforcing web, made of a homogeneous material. However, the disclosed structure supports load via compression. The generally radial spokes are thick and designed to act as columns under normal operation. Thus, the distance between the outer tire diameter and the rigid wheel diameter must be relatively small, in order to resist buckling under high loads. Therefore, the absorbed energy potential—a principle virtue of the pneumatic tire—may be limited in this tire design.
Finally, U.S. Pat. No. 8,517,068 B2 discloses a resilient wheel that operates similarly to the invention of U.S. Pat. No. 7,201,194, except that the circumferential membranes are connected by discrete cylindrical support elements. Here, the advantages could include lower weight and the ability to overcome temperature limitations associated with elastomers. However, the assemblage of these disparate elements could be laborious and expensive.
The present invention breaks these compromises by disclosing a non-pneumatic tire that, in a preferred embodiment, can be constructed from a single homogeneous material, is light-weight, capable of large deflection, and obtains a large, constant pressure contact area. Structure geometries and non-linear material properties are disclosed that accomplish the same function as more complicated designs of prior art. In particular, prior art often employs reinforcements that behave like inextensible membranes, as well as sandwich composite constructions. Conversely, the present design is elastomeric, has no membrane-like behavior, and contains no reinforcement. While the invention has elegant simplicity, the principles of operation are not readily apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art of tire design.
While having potentially complex features, the geometries disclosed in the present invention are generally suitable for realization in the thermoplastic injection, cast, or reaction injection molding process. These practical attributes result in lower cost when produced in large volume, yet do not come at the expense of the aforementioned primary performance attributes of a pneumatic tire.
Second stage processes can be applied to this invention. For example, a non-pneumatic tire with a thermoplastic material can be designed, per procedures disclosed in this application. Then, a tread material and tread pattern can be affixed to a radially exterior extent of the annular beam. This can be accomplished via retreading procedures, by a 2nd stage injection process, or by co-injection.
A full and enabling disclosure of the present subject matter, including the best mode thereof, directed to one of ordinary skill in the art, is set forth in the specification, which makes reference to the appended figures.
Reference will now be made in detail to embodiments of the invention, one or more examples of which are illustrated in the Figures. Each example is provided by way of explanation of the invention, and not meant as a limitation of the invention. For example, features illustrated or described as part of one embodiment can be used with another embodiment to yield still a third embodiment.
The following terms are defined as follows for this disclosure, with material properties referring to those at ambient temperature, unless otherwise noted:
“Wheel” or “Hub” refers to any structure for supporting the tire and capable of attachment to a vehicle axis, and such terms are interchangeable herein.
“Modulus” means Young's tensile modulus of elasticity measured per ISO 527-1/-2. “Young's Modulus,” “tensile modulus,” and “modulus” are used interchangeably herein.
“Secant Modulus” is the tensile stress divided by the tensile strain for any given point on the tensile stress vs. tensile strain curve measured per ISO 527-1/-2.
“Shear Modulus” means the shear modulus of elasticity, calculated by Equation 10, below.
“Tensile Strain at Break” means the tensile strain corresponding to the point of rupture as measured by ISO 527-1/-2.
“Flex Fatigue” is the flexural stress fatigue limit, measured by ASTM D671.
“Design Load” of a tire is the usual and expected operating load of the tire.
“Design contact length” is the contact length over a substantially flat surface when loaded to design load.
The coordinate system defined by the invention is shown in
The tire equatorial plane is the plane defined by the x-z axes.
A non-pneumatic tire employing an annular beam of homogeneous material is represented herein by structural two dimensional Finite Element Models (FEM). This section first provides an overall description of the invention; then, a preferred design practice for developing a tire having desired performance characteristics will be disclosed. This procedure employs FEM.
Many different annular beam web structures are possible. While not exhaustive, additional patterns are shown in
Many different spoke web designs are possible. While not exhaustive, four general patterns are shown in the tire x-z equatorial plane in
A preferred design practice will now be disclosed. The inventor has found relationships that relate the annular beam shear stiffness to bending stiffness, such that excellent contact patch behavior is achieved. This is done within the confines of a monolithic annular beam composed of a homogeneous material, yet having the aforementioned web geometry. When connected to a central wheel via webbed spokes, also previously described, the structure has a high load to mass ratio, yet keeps the simplicity of a homogeneous material, with no need for inextensible membranes or other composites or reinforcing elements.
A preferred tire contact pressure is substantially constant through the length L of the contact patch. To achieve this, an annular beam of radius R should be designed such that it develops a constant pressure when deformed to a flat surface. This is analogous to designing a straight beam which deforms to a circular arc of radius R when subjected to a constant pressure which is equal to the contact pressure of the aforementioned annular beam. However, a homogeneous beam of solid cross section does not behave like this. To create this desired performance, beam bending stiffness and beam shear stiffness can be intelligently designed using a web geometry. A method for doing so will now be disclosed, using standard nomenclature employed in typical engineering textbooks.1
Equation 1 gives the relationship of shear force variation to an applied distributed load on a differential beam element:
V=transverse shear force
W=Constant distributed load per unit length
x=beam length coordinate
The deflection of such a beam due to shear deformation alone can be estimated by combining Equation 1 with other known relationships. This step is not taken by those of ordinary skill in the art of mechanics, as shear deflection is usually ignored in calculating beam deflections. Adding relations between shear force, shear stress, shear modulus, and cross-sectional area, Equation 2 can be derived:
G=beam shear modulus
A=effective beam cross sectional area
z=transverse beam deflection
For small deflections,
is equal to the inverse of the beam deformed curvature. Making this substitution, which is not made by one of ordinary skill in the art, and considering a beam of unit depth, one obtains Equation 3:
G=beam shear modulus
R=deformed beam radius of curvature
A=effective beam cross sectional area, with unit depth
P=Constant distributed pressure, with unit depth
Equation 3 is very important. A straight beam of shear modulus G and effective cross sectional area A, subjected to homogeneous pressure P, will deform into the shape of an arc of radius R, provided shear deflection predominates.
Similarly, an annular beam of radius R, designed such that shear deformation predominates, that is deflected against a flat contact surface, will develop a homogeneous contact pressure P. This is shown in
A constant pressure through design contact length L is a highly desired performance attribute. An annular beam with this attribute could be advantageously employed in conveyor belt systems, and wheels used in track drive systems which have opposing contact patches. It is particularly useful when embodied in a non-pneumatic tire, as shown in
The present invention achieves the desired performance of
The inventor has found that analysis of a straight beam is less cumbersome than an annular beam; therefore the first part of the design process employs a straight beam geometry subjected to a constant pressure, in order to design the web structure. Final design verification then includes a complete model, as will be disclosed.
Towards this end, the first step in developing a design process is to calculate the deflection due to bending and the deflection due to shear of a simply supported straight beam subjected to a constant pressure. Equation 4 gives the center deflection due to bending; Equation 5 gives the center deflection due to shear; Equation 6 solves for shear deflection divided by bending deflection:
zb=beam center deflection due to bending
zs=beam center deflection due to shear
L=beam length, which is about equal to the tire contact length
E=beam tensile modulus
I=beam moment of inertia
The result of Equation (6) is a dimensionless term that describes an important aspect of the annular beam behavior. It is a geometrical term that, for homogeneous materials, is independent of modulus. As zs/zb becomes larger, shear deflection predominates. As shear deflection predominates, Equation (3) becomes valid and the desired performance of
Shear deflection is usually assumed to be large compared to bending deflection, and shear deflection is neglected. Consequently, one of ordinary skill in the art of mechanics is not familiar with the result of Equation (6). Beam bending stiffness must be relatively high, and beam shear stiffness must be relatively low in order to have zs/zb be acceptably high.
The next step is to define a procedure to relate beam design variables to the terms of Equation 6. This is accomplished by a Finite Element Analysis (FEA) on the geometry of the annular beam. While many standard FEA packages are suitable for this analysis, Abaqus was used for analyses in this application. To analyze the annular beam design, the following steps were followed:
FEM used in (i) and (ii) are illustrated in
From the FEM output of the model of
τ=applied shear stress at beam top surface
γ=average angular deformation across beam webbing in the z direction.
Geff=effective beam shear modulus
The effective shear modulus calculation is used with Equation (5) to calculate zs, the beam center deflection due to shear. For a unit depth assumption with the plane stress FEM, the effective beam cross sectional area A for shear deformation calculation equals the beam webbing thickness in the z direction. The webbing between the two continuous bands is much softer in shear than the bands; therefore, the shear strain is higher in the webbing. Since beam deflections in shear depend on the largest shear angle which lies in the beam section, the effective beam cross section area is calculated relative to the total webbing thickness in the z axis.
The second FEA model calculates the total center beam center deflection. By subtracting the deflection due to shear, the deflection due to bending is found. Equation (4) is rearranged to calculate the effective moment of inertia of the beam:
zt=total beam center deflection from FEA calculation
Ieff=effective beam moment of inertia
For homogeneous, isotropic materials, the shear modulus and tensile modulus are related by Poisson's ratio, as given in Equation (10):
ν=Poisson's ratio
E=tensile modulus
G=shear modulus
With the effective beam moment of inertia and the effective beam cross-sectional area known, the designer can then model the performance of an annular beam of the same design when used in the context of the present invention. The design procedure is then used to optimize the beam webbing design by employing Equation (6) to calculate the ratio of shear deflection to bending deflection for any design contact patch length L.
An efficient way to employ the FE models of
A simple web design is used in order to illustrate the design procedure. Other web designs could consist of additional variables and more complex geometries. The FEA beam model geometry of
The bending stiffness also decreases as webbing material is removed. However, the bending stiffness does not decrease as rapidly as does the shear stiffness because of the maintenance of the two solid bands of thickness t at the beam outer fibers. A large moment of inertia, therefore, is maintained. For this reason, the shear deflection will become large compared to the bending deflection as the webbing pace is decreased.
For a webbing pace that is very large, the effective shear modulus will asymptotically approach the isotropic value of 0.344. As the webbing pace decreases to 10.0, the effective shear modulus approaches 0. The reason for this is that, when the webbing pace equals the radius of the cutout, the beam becomes discontinuous through the thickness. The resulting structure would be free to displace in shear with no shear force, and the effective shear modulus would be zero. With a webbing pace of 12 mm, there is 2 mm of material between the webbing cutouts, and the resulting Geff is 0.033, which represents a decrease of more than an order of magnitude compared to the isotropic shear modulus of 0.344.
For a webbing pace above 20 mm, the bending deflection becomes larger than the shear deflection. For a webbing pace of 14 mm or below, the shear deflection becomes significantly larger than the bending deflection. In this design region, where shear deflection is high compared to bending deflection, the positive performance attributes shown in
For a specific example, a small tire having an outer radius of 125 mm can be designed using an annular beam as in
For a webbing pace=12 mm, Geff=0.033 for the normalized modulus of
From Equation (10) the tensile modulus of the material is should be about 210 MPa.
Therefore, by choosing a homogeneous material with a tensile modulus of 210 MPa, a contact patch pressure of 0.20 MPa will be obtained. The contact length of 60 mm has already been defined as an input to the FE analyses. The design load carrying capacity is defined by multiplying pressure by contact area. For a lawn mower tire, a design load of 1115 N (250 lbs) is required. Thus:
F=design load
L=tire contact patch length in X direction=beam length in FE calculations
P=desired contact pressure
W=contact patch width
The second phase involves verification of the annular beam design with a 2D plane stress FEM of a non-pneumatic tire.
At a load of 1115 N (250 lbs), and a contact width in the depth direction of 95 mm, the predicted contact force is equally distributed through the contact length, as shown in
Additional work by the inventor has shown that a zs/zb value of at least about 1.2, and preferably above 2.0, is necessary to obtain a relatively homogeneous pressure throughout the contact length.
This approximate tire size of 10 inch diameter×4 inch width (100 mm) is a common size used for lawn mower and other caster tires. A design load of 250 lbs per tire is very acceptable in this market.
Examples of materials having these physical characteristics include thermoplastic urethanes such as Elastollan S98A and thermoplastic co-polymers such as Hytrel G5544 and 5556. Some versions of unfilled, plasticized, toughened engineering plastics attain similar capabilities, such as Zytel 351PHS. Examples of cast polyurethane thermoset materials attaining these characteristics are COIM PET-95A and PET-60D, when cured with curative MBOCA or MCDEA. These are just a few of many examples and are not meant to limit the scope of invention in any way.
The design procedure covered in the preceding paragraphs is suitable for the design and optimization of a large variety of geometries falling within the scope of this application. The above example was a small tire suitable for a lawnmower, with a relatively short contact length. However, larger tires will have longer contact lengths. Equation (6) has the contact length as a squared term in the denominator. To maintain an acceptably high zs/zb, one strategy is to increase the beam moment of inertia, which is in the numerator of Equation (6).
Increasing the moment of inertia involves increasing the distance between the circumferentially continuous bands and/or increasing the band thickness.
Additional work by the inventor has shown that certain elastomeric materials exhibit favorable non-linear stress vs. strain characteristics. One preferred embodiment involves the choice of a material having a very non-linear material behavior, for which the secant modulus decreases with increasing strain. From the definition earlier provided, “modulus” is the initial slope of the stress vs. strain curve, often termed “Young's modulus” or “tensile modulus.” Preferred materials have a high Young's modulus that is much greater than the secant modulus at 100% strain, which is often termed “the 100% modulus.” This nonlinear behavior provides efficient load carrying during normal operation, yet enables impact loading and large local deflections without generating high stresses.
Some thermoset and thermoplastic polyurethanes have this material behavior. An example of such a favorable material is shown in
Those skilled in the art of elastomer chemistry do not recognize the potential of this material behavior. Elastomers are often used in areas of high imposed strains. As such, testing protocol typically focuses on the performance at high strains, such as 100%, 200%, or more. Mechanical designs that carry load in tension and bending typically do not use one homogeneous elastomer—they employ reinforcements as well. This invention opens this new design space by leveraging this material non-linearity with a favorable mechanical design.
A tread contacting region can be affixed to a radially outer extent of the annular beam in many ways. The tread can be composed of a different material and can extend around the part or all of the axial extents of the annular beam. This is shown in
The design procedure previously described can be represented as a decision flow-chart, shown in
While certain exemplary embodiments have been described and shown in the accompanying drawings, it is to be understood that such embodiments are merely illustrative of and not restrictive on the broad invention, and that this invention not be limited to the specific constructions and arrangements shown and described, since various other changes, combinations, omissions, modifications and substitutions, in addition to those set forth in the above paragraphs, are possible. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that various adaptations, combinations, and modifications of the just described embodiments can be configured without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention.
This is a Continuation of application Ser. No. 14/304,217 filed Jun. 13, 2014, which claims the benefit of the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent No. 61/835,549 filed Jun. 15, 2013. The disclosure of the prior applications is hereby incorporated by reference herein in their entirety. Furthermore, where a definition or use of a term in a reference, which is incorporated by reference herein, is inconsistent or contrary to the definition of that term provided herein, the definition of that term provided herein applies and the definition of that term in the reference does not apply.
Number | Date | Country | |
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61835549 | Jun 2013 | US |
Number | Date | Country | |
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Parent | 14304217 | Jun 2014 | US |
Child | 15677391 | US |