How War Benefits The World?

Coming to an automobile showroom in 2010? How does having airless tires that don’t have blow-outs or damage from accidents or road debris? As with space exploration, most of our modern technology and even, everyday items come from creations from tools used in wartime, that make our life and world a better place to live in.

A team of mechanical engineers funded by the Pentagon has an idea for saving the lives of troops in Iraq: An airless tire that won’t go flat if shot or hit by shrapnel from a roadside bomb.
The tires, which are still under development at Resilient Technologies, are filled with compressed polymers, or plastic, instead of compressed air. The tension of the plastic provides strength, allowing them to work just like air-filled tires, said Ali Manesh, the company’s chief technology officer.

The idea isn’t entirely new, but Manesh is convinced he’s found ways to overcome problems that have plagued other airless tires _ such as dissipating the heat buildup that occurs when they’re driven. A handmade prototype has already been built, he said.

A flat tire on a vehicle like the Army’s Humvee, especially in urban warfare, makes it vulnerable to an ambush, said Manesh, a mechanical engineer who spent five years developing his idea before the $11 million government contract was awarded.

“You can have all the armor in the world you want on a vehicle, but if the tire is vulnerable, it is going to stop the vehicle. What the military hopes to do is develop the next generation of tire to help alleviate that problem,” said Jim Dobbs, a Resilient Technologies spokesman.

The goal is to have an airless tire survive what Chief Executive Officer Robert Lange calls the damage of “something shy of a land mine” so the vehicle can still drive away from the danger.

Resilient, a private research company founded in 2005, is owned equally by Augusta Systems Inc. in West Virginia, American Science and Technology Corp in Chicago and WADAL Plastics Inc. in Medford, Wis. Its only income so far is the defense contract, Lange said. The company also is seeking a patent for its invention. The dream is to produce an airless tire so far called the “non- pneumatic tire,” or NPT that could be sold commercially for passenger cars, he said.

Seven engineers and an office manager work at Resilient’s office at a Wausau industrial park, testing and retesting models of Manesh’s theories.

It is not a matter of whether his ideas work, only when, Manesh said. “The theory of it is sound. From theory to manufacturing, there is always glitches. Then you have to try to iron those out.”

Charles Pergantis, a mechanical engineer for the Army Research Laboratory in Maryland, said Resilient has developed a “somewhat different structure” for an airless tire than has been done before.

“I think they have put together a good plan of attack on how to develop this thing,” he said. “I am not sure if they are going to be meet all the successes that we want. They have some very, very interesting designs. It does sound very exciting.”

Manesh refuses to discuss the details of his invention because a patent is pending.