Goodyear claims to have reinvented the wheel.

[lilhasselhoffer]

Even if somehow Goodyear manages to get it out for other countries, it will be out of business in India. First of all the bumps and hazardous material thrown on road will cause a lot of pain as the magnetic induction used for mechanism will be damaged due to unbalanced movement on the road. Changing the complete magnetic unit if damaged will cost a lot. And when needed to replace tires the road assist services in India are not that good so then changing that heavy tires will be like hell. Overall this concept will most probably not work for Indian or countries which have similar roads.

Sigh.

If you missed it, the idea was for self driving vehicles. India doesn't really have that kind of an infrastructure (too many people in too small of a space).

Barring that, you're also incorrect because you assume the wheel sphere and containment assembly are affixed to the car. Why? If the sphere and containment were attached to the vehicle by a shock and spring you'd have something absolutely identical to what is being used today. The sphere assembly would be able to travel with the road, and the shock and spring would dispel and dampen the energy of this vertical travel by converting it into heat. It's the exact same technology as all of the other vehicles on the road today. If you want to do the math I'd suggest you look up "Mass-spring-damper system" in an engineering or physics textbook.


Edit:

It just occured to me:

They did NOT reinvent the wheel. Wheel's are circular.

They reinvented the sphere. Marketing dumbasses need to go back to geometry class...

People is glass houses should be mindful of throwing stones. A circle is two dimensional. A wheel is anything roughly resembling a disc. Neither of these things describe a modern tire. The thing that Good year sells is a Torus. It surrounds a hub and has a roughly circular cross section with the cross sections being equidistant from a central point.

It's obvious why they call it a wheel, given the common vernacular. Insulting people, based upon your own erroneous statements, is a losing proposition. Maybe a moment or two of introspection might allow us to be a bit more civil. I realize that's coming from me, but this really doesn't need to devolve into a fight about how you want to interpret terminology. There's more than enough here to discuss without dissecting individual words whose dictionary and common usage definitions differ.

 

[erocker]

a) tire wear is going to be a bitch.
b) hydroplanning will be common and extremely dangerous
c) the surface area of the tire on the road is likely smaller than that of a normal tire which means reduced handling, traction, and braking.
d) how much power does it require to levitate the vehicle above the spheres?
e) what's the maximum speed this can go before the spheres escape their magnetic constraints?
f) vehicles have a lot of interior space because of how little space the tires occupy--that won't be the case with spheres.

Goodyear may have designed an awesome tire for a vehicle that doesn't exist. 99% of the technology is in the vehicle itself and, as far as I know, no one is interested in conceptualizing it nor manufacturing it.

a) Yeah. That would be the biggest problem with these since wear can almost happen anywhere on the tire.
b} goes with c) and I don't think its impossible for these to have a decent contact patch. But with uneven wear, it wouldn't matter.

 

[dorsetknob]

Tongue in (ass)Cheek Question ?
How would you Fit Winter Snow Chains

 

[lilhasselhoffer]

a) Yeah. That would be the biggest problem with these since wear can almost happen anywhere on the tire.
b} goes with c) and I don't think its impossible for these to have a decent contact patch. But with uneven wear, it wouldn't matter.

To the point A, let me state that everyone agreeing to this is not thinking about the problem in 3 dimensions.

Because a sphere is three dimensional, and travel is linear, you can vary how the sphere moves so as to cover the sphere evenly, thus making wear constant. Let's look at this with a picture:

(image courtesy of http://www.archimedes-lab.org/How_to_Solve/9_dots.html)


The astute observer asks how you get a straight line travel, if the sphere is not spinning on only one axis. The answer is simple mathematics. Let's say you generate fricative force from your wheels that amount to 5 kN. That 5 kN is pointed at 47 degrees to the left of the desired direction of travel. Let's then assume that the other sphere is generating the same force, but at 47 degrees to the right of the desired direction of travel. The astute among you will understand that I've constructed a 3-4-5 triangle for convenience.

Now, the tires actually generate a 4 kN force in the direction of travel each with 3 kN of force generated to the left and right respectively. This means that the net force, what will propel the car, is now 0 kN laterally and 8 kN in the desired direction of travel. The sphere still spins around, but the surface touching pavement is constantly different as you go around the sphere.


Does that make sense? The video demonstrates simply turning the tires, but that solution creates two surfaces which will have increased wear. Unsurprisingly, the PR demonstration doesn't account for this, but a moment or two of critical thought can address the issue with little to no difficulty.




As far as b and c, both of these points are irrelevant. I'm with you on the contact patch still being a physics based value. I'm with you on wear being a concern if it is uneven. Where people are missing the point is the hexagon. A shape that can interlock in three dimensions, but will increase tire creation complexity. The reason we don't have hexagons now is that cutting straight lines with a giant straight knife is easy. Easy is cost effective. Cost effective means consumers buy your product. $600 for tires every 4 years is a reasonable price, but most people would have issues with $1000 for a 4 year tire. A sphere increases surface area, increasing effective life. This offsets increased costs, by having them distributed over a greater lifetime. $900 for a 6 year tire is steep one time cost, but the cost of ownership is the same over time. That's how a solution like this sells. The cost is higher, but you'll have them much longer.




Edit:

Tongue in (ass)Cheek Question ?
How would you Fit Winter Snow Chains

Wise in ass answer: snow chains on a magnetic ball. I can't help but think you're looking for an assisted suicide there. Non-magnetic metals are either expensive or lack durability, and magnetic ones would functionally screw up a magnetic control system.

Would kinda be funny to see someone riding on a magnetized geodesic array of metal though. Kinda like somebody proposing square wheels for a car.

 

[EarthDog]

a) tire wear is going to be a bitch.
b) hydroplanning will be common and extremely dangerous
c) the surface area of the tire on the road is likely smaller than that of a normal tire which means reduced handling, traction, and braking.
d) how much power does it require to levitate the vehicle above the spheres?
e) what's the maximum speed this can go before the spheres escape their magnetic constraints?
f) vehicles have a lot of interior space because of how little space the tires occupy--that won't be the case with spheres.

Goodyear may have designed an awesome tire for a vehicle that doesn't exist. 99% of the technology is in the vehicle itself and, as far as I know, no one is interested in conceptualizing it nor manufacturing it.

Did you read the article for items A and B? It (at least another article did anyway, addresses those things).

 

[dorsetknob]

Being" Semi Serious" what portion of the Rich industrialized world fits Snow Chains to ensure mobility in winter weather conditions
How would this Goodyear Idea cope with 3" to 10" of freezing snow / slush in say a Montana winter

Ah worked it out You garage your wonder wheel vehicle for 3 months of the Year because it cannot cope and get out the old 4x4 Yeh that's Progress

 

[RealNeil]

This is going to be incredibly expensive.

 

[lilhasselhoffer]

Being" Semi Serious" what portion of the Rich industrialized world fits Snow Chains to ensure mobility in winter weather conditions
How would this Goodyear Idea cope with 3" to 10" of freezing snow / slush in say a Montana winter

Ah worked it out You garage your wonder wheel vehicle for 3 months of the Year because it cannot cope and get out the old 4x4 Yeh that's Progress

Allow me the indulgence of being an ass momentarily. Who cares about Montana?


Now let me qualify. Montana is an outlier. It experiences severe weather, but it represents so few people that altering things substantially for their benefit is...likely not a financially viable option. It sucks to say this, but it's the same logic as why both giants and midgets (or whatever the PC terminology is) get the shaft when buying cars. If you're an outlier the world might as well offer you the middle finger.


On a less abrasive note, have you heard of inductive heating? A magnetic field can heat up a ferrous element by hysteresis based losses. This is basically the same technology as inductive heating stove tops. It's theoretically possible to use the same techniques to heat the sphere up to just slightly above freezing at vehicle start. One the vehicle is moving it could provide some minimal amount of heating, and combined with fricative heating may be sufficient to prevent freezing.

This is all theoretical, with no mathematics done. Heating would take quite some energy, and the simpler solution might simply be to impregnate rubber with fibrous tubules so that the surface area of the tire is much greater than current technologies allow. Either way, the issue could be addressed, though I don't care to guess what the actual solution will be.

 

[Caring1]

Something like this might work in snow, to a degree.

I first saw one of these on Mythbusters a while ago

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Pretty sure mecanum wheels only work well at low speeds. At high speeds, I imagine the road noise would be appalling.

The US Navy actually owns the patent for mecanum wheels. I wonder if they comissioned a road going vehicle as a test. If they made a tank-like vehicle with mecanum wheels instead of tracks, it would have really good mobility in urban warfare. Uh, then again, why would the Navy care about urban warfare?

 

[R-T-B]

A circle is two dimensional. A wheel is anything roughly resembling a disc. Neither of these things describe a modern tire. The thing that Good year sells is a Torus. It surrounds a hub and has a roughly circular cross section with the cross sections being equidistant from a central point.

It's obvious why they call it a wheel, given the common vernacular. Insulting people, based upon your own erroneous statements, is a losing proposition. Maybe a moment or two of introspection might allow us to be a bit more civil. I realize that's coming from me, but this really doesn't need to devolve into a fight about how you want to interpret terminology. There's more than enough here to discuss without dissecting individual words whose dictionary and common usage definitions differ.

You took that comment about 5X more seriously than I would have. If I was in a fighting mood, I'd remind whether or not this is a wheel or "something else entirely" at this point is entirely a matter of perception. But I'm not. I'm too busy praying to the frog god for a speedy UPS delivery to ressurect my computer. Croak croak.

 

[Filip Georgievski]

1.First and foremost, with todays roads, this is imposible. Roads will have to be totaly reconstructed to be able to drive a car like this safely on the road.
2. Magnetically controlable wheels?? That is still not reachable by todays tech. Plus, any electronic device you use in a car like this will result in death to the device or the car. They will have to come up with a good isolation to make this possible. Heck, even people with steel bone reinforcement will not be able to get in a car like this.
3. No offroad capability what so ever with a vehicle like this. Stricly meant for road purposes.
4. Low magnetic suspension will be crude and undriveble when more that 2 people in the car, so no chance for a design like this to work with travel vehicles.

There are so much more things against this design. It is not doable in the next 20 years or maybe more.
But 1 thing can be positive from this design. Fuel and economy will be a good point. For one, will just need a battery to start up the system and then while driving, the wheels would produce energy for a rechargeable car that you can drive forever and never run out of gas.

 

[R-T-B]

Good point. I have a steel plate in my arm. If I climb in something with a giant magnet, I'm going to regret it quickly and instantly.

 

[Caring1]

But 1 thing can be positive from this design. Fuel and economy will be a good point. For one, will just need a battery to start up the system and then while driving, the wheels would produce energy for a rechargeable car that you can drive forever and never run out of gas.

Perpetual motion engines aren't going to happen any time soon.
Like a Maglev train, it will need a constant source of power, which onboard generation will not be adequate.

 

[dorsetknob]

Uh, then again, why would the Navy care about urban warfare?

Global warming and Sea levels rising your navy backyard is about to get bigger and gain a massive population rise of disgruntled people who will need to be Pacified/de Iman..ned/ freeded in the name of Democracy ( and Oil Reserves )

Still that's another controversial thread..............

 

[lilhasselhoffer]

1.First and foremost, with todays roads, this is imposible. Roads will have to be totaly reconstructed to be able to drive a car like this safely on the road.
2. Magnetically controlable wheels?? That is still not reachable by todays tech. Plus, any electronic device you use in a car like this will result in death to the device or the car. They will have to come up with a good isolation to make this possible. Heck, even people with steel bone reinforcement will not be able to get in a car like this.
3. No offroad capability what so ever with a vehicle like this. Stricly meant for road purposes.
4. Low magnetic suspension will be crude and undriveble when more that 2 people in the car, so no chance for a design like this to work with travel vehicles.

There are so much more things against this design. It is not doable in the next 20 years or maybe more.
But 1 thing can be positive from this design. Fuel and economy will be a good point. For one, will just need a battery to start up the system and then while driving, the wheels would produce energy for a rechargeable car that you can drive forever and never run out of gas.

Sigh.

1) Why would roads have to be reconstructed? You make a statement that we presumably should take as fact, but never answer why.

2) Do you currently own anything with a brushless DC motor in it? The answer is likely yes. A permanent magnet is forced to move by an electric field, which induces a magnetic field. That's what this wheel would be. This isn't science fiction, it's applying the same technology we have now to different kind of motion.

2) Magnetic fields are easy to control If you wrap a magnet in layered steel you can effectively make the field travel inside your constructed box. This technology already exists in things like MRIs, where despite being insanely powerful magnets they don't rip the buildings they reside in apart.

3) Why? You've not answered basics about why this statement should be taken as reasonable. Suspension issues are perhaps the culprit, or maybe this is related to geometry?

4) Low magnetic suspension? That sounds like word soup to me. Suspension is generally a spring and damper, combining with the mass of a vehicle. You seem to be assuming that the sphere would be caged, and the cage would be hard fixed to the frame of the vehicle. Yes, that would be stupid. At the same time, all you'd need to do is adopt an independent suspension for the sphere pod, and you'd have exactly the same suspension vehicles have now. Tell me, where's the problem?



Now the last sentence is just...special. For that to be true your braking would have to be 100% efficient, you'd never be allowed to deform the tires, you'd need to travel in a vacuum, and your control system would have to use no power. In short, this is not a reasonable statement in the slightest. Regenerative braking would allow for some power to be put back into the system, but you wouldn't be able to run this car without recharging it. I'm honestly not sure how people ever come to this conclusion. If you'd like to know why, and currently have a car, I can recommend something easy to demonstrate this. Stick you hand out the window, and feel the air resistance pushing it backwards. As you travel through the air, that force is being converted into random kinetic energy in your wake. That random kinetic energy is hard to conceptualize as temperature, but you can feel the force that the car has to overcome constantly just to keep going. If you're always using energy to overcome that force, then you couldn't have a perpetual motion car. Some energy is lost just to the surrounding air, and feeling that force should offer a palpable explanation of the physics (even if it's a less than accurate conceptual exercise).

 

[rtwjunkie]

Uh, then again, why would the Navy care about urban warfare?

SEALS. Marines, who are part of the Navy and through whom funding comes.