Skip to main content

Goodyear innovation could make tyre pumps obsolete

Goodyear has announced it is developing Air Maintenance Technology (AMT) that will enable tyres to remain inflated at the optimum pressure without the need for any external pumps or electronics. All components of the AMT system, including the miniaturised pump, will be fully contained within the tyre.
April 16, 2012 Read time: 3 mins
RSS843 Goodyear has announced it is developing Air Maintenance Technology (AMT) that will enable tyres to remain inflated at the optimum pressure without the need for any external pumps or electronics. All components of the AMT system, including the miniaturised pump, will be fully contained within the tyre.

"While the technology is complex, the idea behind the AMT system is relatively simple and powered by the tyre itself as it rolls down the road," said Jean-Claude Kihn, Goodyear senior vice president and chief technical officer.

"A tyre that can maintain its own inflation is something drivers have wanted for many years. Goodyear has taken on this challenge and the progress we have made is very encouraging," said Kihn. "This will become the kind of technological breakthrough that people will wonder how they ever lived without."

Goodyear did not provide an estimate as to when this technology would be available at tyre retailers, but said the timetable would be accelerated due to recent government research grants in the US and Europe.

The United States Department of Energy's Office of Vehicle Technology Wednesday announced it has awarded a $1.5 million grant for research, development and demonstration of the AMT system for commercial truck tyres. The grant will be administered by the National Energy Technology Laboratory and work will be conducted at Goodyear's Innovation Center in Akron, Ohio.

In July, Goodyear successfully applied for a grant from the Luxemburg government for research and development of an AMT system for consumer tyres. That work will be conducted at Goodyear's Innovation Center in Colmar-Berg, Luxembourg.

"While similar in concept, there are significant differences in AMT systems for consumer and commercial tyres," said Kihn. "The tangible support from both the US and Luxembourg governments underscores the value of these projects and the many positive benefits they can provide drivers around the world."

In addition, the DOE's Office of Vehicle Technology today also announced that it will award a $1.5 million grant for a joint project between PPG Industries and Goodyear to improve the rolling resistance and fuel efficiency of tyres. The project's objective is to increase average fuel efficiency of passenger vehicle fleets through use of new tread and inner liner technologies.

"Advanced technologies that are invisible to the human eye – like those we are working on with PPG – will help to dramatically improve fuel efficiency of tyres while maintaining other important qualities such as traction and tread-life," said Kihn.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Truck platooning trials take to the highways
    July 24, 2017
    There is rising enthusiasm in America and beyond for the concept of truck platooning with trials being planned in several US states, as David Crawford reports. Growing numbers of US states are considering or implementing plans for trials of electronically-linked truck platooning on public road networks. This is in response to the interest being shown by the US$70bn a year road freight industry, where fuel represents 41% of the operating costs making the prospect of improving fuel economy by trucks travellin
  • Australian road pricing, road funding needs more debate
    January 31, 2012
    Everyone in the road transport industry in Australia is talking road pricing - everyone, that is, except the politicians. Christine Keyes reports. At the end of 2008, Australia's road transport industry was wringing its collective hands, unable to raise more than $100 million from an individual bank for any Public Private Partnership (PPP). The A$750 million Peninsula Link project, announced by the Victoria Government in March 2009, was the first road project in the country to be put out to market as an ava
  • Green Light WIM
    July 30, 2012
    Beginning in the 1990s, Oregon was one of the first US states to use weigh-in-motion scales and transponder-based systems to enable trucks to avoid having to stop at weigh stations. Its Green Light preclearance system soon became a model for similar deployments throughout the country. Today, Green Light annually weighs and screens 1.6 million trucks as they approach 21 Oregon weigh stations and it preclears 1.5 million of them.
  • Re-timing traffic signals delivers cost benefits
    June 28, 2012
    Nashville's signal optimisation programme produced a stunning return on investment. Are those results exceptional? Could similar results be replicated in cities across the US and indeed the world? ITS International spoke to Chris Rhodes, P.E. of Kimley-Horn and Associates, project leader for the Nashville signal optimisation programme. "You have to bear in mind that with signal optimisation programmes you don't see, for instance, physical construction or new pieces of equipment on the roadside that someone