The space agency and tiremaker developed an airless tire – the so-called “Spring Tire” that has 800 load-bearing springs – to transport large, long-range vehicles across the surface of the moon.
The Spring Tire has already been tested on NASA’s Lunar Electric Rover. “This tire is extremely durable and extremely energy efficient,” said Jim Benzing, Goodyear’s lead innovator on the project. “The spring design contours to the surface on which it’s driven to provide traction. But all of the energy used to deform the tire is returned when the springs rebound. It doesn’t generate heat like a normal tire.”
According to Asnani, the Spring Tire does not have a “single point failure mode. What that means,” he said, “is that a hard impact that might cause a pneumatic tire to puncture and deflate would only damage one of the 800 load bearing springs. Along with having this ultra-redundant characteristic, the tire has a combination of overall stiffness yet flexibility that allows off-road vehicles to travel fast over rough terrain with relatively little motion being transferred to the vehicle.” (Tire Review/Akron)
