1. Field of the Invention
This present invention relates to a safe tire, particularly with a supporting apparatus for providing a backup support when pressure is lost in the safe tire and it runs flat.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Tires today are highly reliable and durable—but they're not invulnerable, they can be damaged by lack of maintenance or accidents, such as running over nails or into holes. Therefore, that means that tire failures—flat tires—sometimes happen. Many cars have small “temporary use only” spare tires. These are designed for limited use, and most importantly, not every driver has the ability to exchange the flat tires by themselves. Hence, a “safe tire” with a backup support mechanism is under development. The car, equipped with the safe tire can be driven on for a safe distance even if the safe tire is flat and the pressure is at zero.
First, a cross-sectional view of a conventional safe tire system is shown in
The wheel is designed as a single unit in steel or alloy and formed of the rim 111 and a wheel disk (not shown). The rim 111 is connected with the bead 104 of the tire, and the wheel disk is connected with a vehicle (not shown). The feature of the safe tire system is in a supporting ring 113 slid onto the well of the rim 111 of the wheel and fixing the supporting ring 113 with the help of a positioning stop 112 of the rim and the bead 104 of the tire. The supporting ring 113, a toroidal elastomer, could be formed as a whole or a combination structure of a plurality of elements.
When the tire suffers from a puncture and leads to a loss of pressure, the sidewall 113 cannot provide a sufficient elasticity to support the tread 101 and the shoulder 102. At this point of time, the supporting ring 113 will take charge in the support of the tread 101 and the vehicle will still be under control and able to travel a safe distance.
As in the above description, the supporting ring 113 can provide backup support when the tire has an unexpected pressure loss. But the safe tire system can not be applied to a general rim because it needs other special elements such as the positioning stop 112 and an appropriate seat (not shown) to house the supporting ring 113 in the well of the rim 111, which is immovable. For this reason, the consumer must spend more money to buy the safe tire system with a supporting ring 113 and a peculiar wheel that's necessary.
In the above conventional safe tire system, the supporting ring 113 has to provide a sufficient elasticity to support the tire on an exceptional pressure-losing situation for a safe distance. So the supporting ring 113 is usually made up of a hard rubber and must have an enough thickness to maintain the comfort for driving. The heavy weight of the supporting ring 113 will increase the loading of the wheel in an unexceptional situation. In addition, when the safe tire system has to be replaced or repaired and the tire has to be removed from the rim 111, the supporting ring 113 will be blocked. A special mounting and removing machine can be used to extract the supporting device 113 and then reinsert it back to the well of the rim 111, but unfortunately, not every repair shop will be equipped with the special mounting machine within the “safe distance”.
Next, a cross-sectional view of another conventional safe tire is shown in
The feature of the safe tire is installed in an m-shaped steel rim 213 slid onto the rim 211 of the wheel and fixed in the m-shaped steel rim 213 with the help of the bead 204 of the tire. When the tire suffers from a puncture, which leads to a loss of pressure, the sidewall 213 cannot provide sufficient elasticity to support the tread 201 and the shoulder 202. At this point in time, the m-shape steel rim 213 will take charge to support the tread 201 and to prevent the bead 204 from separating from the rim 213. So thus enabling the vehicle to travel a safe distance.
As in the above description, the m-shaped steel rim 213 enables the vehicle to travel even in the case of a puncture or insufficient inflation pressure, and the m-shaped steel rim 213 could be utilized in a general tire and a general wheel. But arranging the m-shaped steel rim 213 onto the well of the rim 211 and being jammed by the bead 204 of the tire is a difficult technique. Hence, if the driver has no luck in finding a repair shop with a special mounting machine with a trained technician within the “safe distance”, the tire, the wheel and the m-shaped steel rim 213 must be completely changed.
The present invention has been made in view of the above problems of the conventional safe tire system. An object of the invention is arranging a supporting apparatus on a general tire under the principle of not influencing the normal tire exchange process. The general tire with the supporting apparatus will become a safe tire and keep a vehicle under control and rolling to a safe distance in the case of a puncture or of insufficient inflation pressure.
Another object of the present invention is arranging a supporting apparatus on a general tire to provide a backup support for a vehicle without the matching of a peculiar wheel, the original wheel of the vehicle is sufficient to assist the supporting apparatus in keeping the vehicle under control and rolling to a safe distance in the case of a puncture or of insufficient inflation pressure.
The other object of the present invention is providing a method for forming a safe tire by arranging a supporting device on a rubber bead of the safe tire. The rubber bead is used for fixing the supporting device on the safe tire and helping to provide a auxiliary backup support.
As mentioned in the above objects of the present invention, a supporting apparatus is installed on a safe tire, providing a backup support when the safe tire has an unexpected loss of pressure and hasn't the ability to support a vehicle. By this supporting apparatus of the present invention, the vehicle could continue to be driven a safe distance.
Additional objects and advantages of this invention will be apparent from the following detailed description of a preferred embodiment thereof that proceeds with reference to the accompanying drawings.
Referring to
According to the preferred embodiment of the present invention, a rubber bead 312 is formed in the safe tire 30 with a triangular cross-section. One surface of the rubber bead 312 is pasted with the inner wall of the bead 304, the other two surfaces are intersected by an acute angle to form a circular salient. And a plurality of supporting elements are linked to be a supporting device 313 and chained by the hooked structure of the rubber bead 312. The rubber bead 312 is not only arrange for fixing the supporting device 313 on the safe tire 30, and further, it also provides a auxiliary backup support for the safe tire 30.
In this preferred embodiment of the present invention, the structure of the rubber bead 312 is a circular salient, but other structures which could fix the supporting device 313 on the safe tire 30 such as gear-shaped salient or a plurality of separated salient are also arranged to form the rubber bead 312 of the present invention. And the material of the rubber bead 312 of this preferred embodiment is a hard rubber, but other materials which could make a good connection with the bead 304 and provide a high elasticity could also be the material of the rubber bead 312 of the present invention. In addition, another rubber bead (not shown) could be formed in the safe tire 30 and pasted with the inner wall of the bead 304, matching with the rubber bead 312 and enhancing the combination with the supporting device 313 according the present invention.
The supporting device 313 is composed of a plurality of supporting elements. Referring to
In this preferred embodiment of the present invention, the side plate 318 is used to connect with two adjacent rivets 317 of the connection section 315 of the adjacent supporting elements. But other connecting devices and methods have the ability to fasten the adjacent supporting elements will also be arranged in the present invention. And referring to
Referring to
In this preferred embodiment of the present invention, each supporting element is provided with two hollow structures on the connection section 315, but the number of hollow structures of the connection section 315 will not be limited of this preferred embodiment. Providing a single hollow and positing it on the malposition structure will also be used to connect the adjacent supporting elements 315. The number of the plurality of supporting elements is depended on the size and the driving comfort of the safe tire 30.
According to the above description of a preferred embodiment of the present invention, a supporting device 313 is installed on a rubber bead 312 of a safe tire 30, providing a backup support when the safe tire 30 has an unexpected loss of pressure and hasn't enough ability to support a vehicle. By this supporting device 313 of the present invention, the vehicle could continue being driven a safe distance.
Skilled workers will further recognize that many changes may be made to the details of the above-described embodiment of this invention without departing from the underlying principles thereof. Accordingly, it will be appreciated that this invention is also applicable to color synchronization applications other than those found in multimedia projectors. The scope of the present invention should, therefore, be determined only by the following claims.