Technical Concept Development, Testing, and Modeling: Development of a Shape-Memory Alloy (SMA) Tire Insert for Flat Tire Prevention and Airless Conversions

While there are numerous products on the market to help prevent flat tires from occurring, none have proven to be 100% effective. Airless-tire products have been proposed in the past, and the research behind such technologies is ongoing. However, the envisioned product designed, discussed, and analyzed in this paper (an airless-tire insert for mountain bikes) addresses the issue with a radically different perspective and proposes a potential solution that not only can eliminate flat tires from occurring altogether but can also improve ride feel. The contents of this paper include the underlying derivations used to model a “Multi-Spring Model” (MSM) of an airless mountain bike tire, benchmark force versus displacement testing data of pneumatic tires inflated to varying pressures, and physical test data obtained from the team’s patent pending experimental prototype. While this paper provides a technical overview of the product, it also addresses the product development process and verifiable testing procedures through the system engineer’s perspective. In addition, this paper also discusses the feasibility of using shape-memory alloy (SMA) material (used by NASA on the wheels of the Mars rover) as the primary structural component for a tire insert.