Project 5
"Inventing Ride-Enhanced Non-Pneumatic Wheel"
EST Project MEST-CT-2005-020986
Ride-Enhancing Tread Band*
*Patent application pending with German Patent- and Trademark Office
| Fellow |
 M.Tech. Kundan Kumar |
| Foreseen duration |
36 months and 2 weeks |
| Start Date |
15.09.2006 |
| End Date |
30.09.2009 |
| Ministering Institut |
Institute of Lightweight Construction and Design,
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Marine Technology,
University of Rostock, Germany
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| Project Images |
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Figure 1. Omega-shaped flexible webs, made up of fiber-reinforced
functionally gradient
polymer composite material, are the building-blocks of proposed design.
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Figure 2. Soft and solid hemispherical knobs of the belt compress locally under
impact
loads thereby providing a softer ride.
*Patent application pending with German Patent- and Trademark Office
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| Project Goal
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To design and develop a ride-enhanced non-pneumatic wheel, made up of fiber
reinforced composite material, which would provide a pneumatic-like ride comfort
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| Description
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Project summary
- A non-pneumatic wheel, comprising of outer and inner cylindrical coaxial members (hoops) and in the
space between them circumferentially spaced omega-shaped webs, made up of fiber-reinforced composite
material has been designed.
- Poor ride quality is a critical bottleneck of non-pneumatic wheel design. A generic ride-enhancing
belt-structure concept, to be used with any kind of non-pneumatic wheel, has been developed to improve
the ride quality.
- Extensive FE simulations (using commercially available finite element code ABAQUS) have been
carried out to compute and validate the ride-characteristics of proposed non-pneumatic wheel design.
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Papers in international peer reviewed conferences,
Participation in workshops, summer schools, study visits and tutorials,
Reports
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- 34th Annual Tire Mechanics Short Course - University of Akron, USA in
co-operation with Tire Technology Expo 2009; 16-19 February, 2009, Hamburg
(Germany)
- “Impact Engineering of Composite Structures”, International Centre for Mechanical Sciences (CISM),
Udine (Italy), 21-25 July, 2008
- Junior EUROMAT 2008, Lausanne (Switzerland), 14-17 July, 2008
- “Functional Materials and Nanotechnology” Materials' Days-2008, Rostock, 26-27 June, 2008
- “Doctoral and Postdoctoral Summer School on Soft and Critical Systems Thinking”, University of
Italian Switzerland, Lugano (Switzerland), 2-13 June, 2008
- “Functional Materials and Nanotechnology”
Materials' Days-2007, Rostock, 3-4 May, 2007
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