source: Continental
Such an invention was in use until the 19th century, when the beneficial properties of rubber milk were discovered. It was then that Charles Goodyear developed the vulcanization process and sold his invention to a company that is today one of the largest tycoons on the tire market. Unfortunately, like many great inventors and artists, he died bankrupt.
Another opportunity to popularize rubber tires appeared when the well-known John Dunlop, annoyed by the noise made by his son riding a children's bicycle on hard wheels around the yard, came up with a brilliant idea. He put a structure of canvas reinforced with rubber over the iron wheels. Thus , Dunlop became the inventor of the pneumatic tyre.
In 1888, he patented it together with a rubber inner tube. Thanks to this, driving has become faster and much quieter than before.
Soon after, all-rubber tires began to be used, but that didn't last long. More than 160 years ago, the British William Thomson patented the technology of pumping air into the rubber. Due to the rapid development of transport, he wanted to equip wooden cart wheels with a tire. Unfortunately, its construction turned out to be too weak in relation to the weight
and road conditions with which she had to face and was not appreciated.
Technical progress continued, transport took various forms, but in an instant, new horizons opened up for tire pioneers such as German Continental, British Dunlop, French Michelin and Italian Pirelli . Overseas, Goodyear presented a tire that, combined with a special rim, was easy to install and replace. The idea was quickly introduced
in the life of Henry Ford, and the effects were not long in coming. In 1908, the Ford Model T appeared equipped with Goodyear tires.
Initially, the rapid development of tires and the conquest of the world by invention inhibited limited access to rubber. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the Brazilians had a monopoly on this raw material, and the dynamic development of the automotive industry resulted in very high prices. Efforts were made to create a method of obtaining a material that could successfully replace natural rubber, but the technologies were too expensive to use. At the beginning of the 20th century, a tire with a tube was a troublesome solution, operational failures were frequent, and the tires themselves lasted a maximum of 800 km . Everything changed with the passage of time and the improvement of the design - in the 1920s, thanks to special reinforcements, the durability of tires increased to 15-20 thousand. km. Cars, which appeared on the roads more and more, began to set the direction for tire manufacturers. It was noticed that depending on the surface, the car always behaves differently. More and more intensive work was carried out on tire profiles, and the times of world wars fueled tire solutions even more. In 1938, winter tires made by Semperit were presented for the first time in snowy Austria. World War II turned out to be a breakthrough in this respect. When the Japanese occupied the American rubber plantations in the Pacific, the shortage of raw material prevented the production of equipment for the American army. The situation was saved by the scientist Waldo Semon from the BF Goodrich company, who in 1940 created his version of synthetic rubber - Ameripol.
source: Continental
At the beginning of the 1950s, the requirements for safety and driving comfort became more and more restrictive, also due to the fact that faster and faster cars appeared on the roads. It was at this time that manufacturers began to fill tires with more solid, wire constructions, displacing the commonly used cotton. This was intended to improve driving comfort, but as it turned out, it affected the stability of the vehicles and, most importantly, safety.
After the end of the war, synthetic rubber inner tubes found their way onto the civilian market almost immediately. It wasn't until 1954 that tubeless tires began to be more widely distributed and fitted by Cadillac and Packard. A tubeless tire was 30% more expensive than a tubed tire at the time, but still slightly less expensive than Goodyear's "Lifeguard" dual self-sealing tube tyres. The new product reached 50 thousand. mileage. The total operating costs were up to 15% higher than tube type, but the safety has definitely increased. Goodyear then went a step further and offered its customers a real extravagance! In 1961, he introduced a tire illuminated from the inside to customers. The assumption concerned the improvement of safety, because not only did the innovative tires illuminate the car in bad weather, after dark or with poor visibility, but they could also light up only when the driver started braking. Unfortunately, the solution did not find widespread use due to the interest of pedestrians who were able to stop in the middle of the street to admire the disorientation among other drivers.
source: tires.do
Today it is difficult to imagine modern motoring without tyres. All this is due to the fact that someone came up with the idea to pump a little air into a piece of rubber or caoutchouc. Whether we are talking about bicycles, cars or planes, tires always play one of the most important roles .
