Wheels & Tires

[Terrence]

Dang! You guys made me pull the spec. on tire inflation. Can't copy/paste as it's proprietary, and I like my job, but the general gist is:
No moisture - as I discussed earlier (altitude, expansion ratio, yada, yada...)
Non-corrosive to the wheel assy. - magnesium rims
Non-combustible - for 'braked' wheels.

Didn't think when I woke up this morning that I'd need to re-educate myself on "the use of nitrogen in aircraft systems"...but it's appreciated!

I was at my Local Honda dealer a couple of years ago, I struck up a conversation with the owner at that time (Mr David Wheeler), before I knew it he had his dealership give me complimentary nitrogen in my Honda Accord tires. Sweet it was, I have been running on nitrogen for two years now. Not only am I maintaining consistent psi to maintain least rolling resistance, I am also maximizing tread life. Only when I had a flat had I needed to get it re-inflated. There are thoughtful people in the United States. Practice Karma
My Elio will have nitrogen in its three tires!
Terrence

 

[wheaters]

So if nitrogen is lighter than air, and you pump your tyres up really hard, your car weighs less and you get better mpg.... ;-)

 

[Snick]

I'm not sold on nitrogen's benefits versus dry air, but since I use it for my hobby, I'll try it. Hey, why not metallize your tires' innards and use helium?? I've got a recipe for water based silver nano particle solution that will embed into any plastic or rubber, to slow the rate of helium diffusion loss.

 

[samwichse]

Nitrogen fill: a fool and his money are soon parted.

Question: what do you think the tire is full of when you mount it to the rim? Plain air. You can add nitrogen to the tire, but it'll still have a large fraction of oxygen/argon/whatever in it.

Even better, these gases will slowly diffuse into an inflated tire until equilibrium is reached:

Put another way, if there is 100% nitrogen in a tire - and therefore no partial pressure of oxygen - then the partial pressure of oxygen outside the tires is 14.7 psi X 0.21 (21%) = 3.1 psi. That means that there is a pressure of 3.1 psi trying to push oxygen into the tire.

This effect was demonstrated by a paper delivered to Tire Society, Sept 25, 2007 by Don Amos - Study of Oxygen and Nitrogen Permeation through Tires with Monthly Top-off. Unfortunately, this paper was never published.

Source: http://www.barrystiretech.com/nitrogeninflation.html

 

[hawg_ryder]

Here's a very good tech article written by The Tire Rack on this very subject....
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=191
My 2013 Genesis came with N filled tires and since the dealer supplies me with free refills ... why not...
Now, as for 14.7 psi of any gas pushing its way into a container even a semi-permeable one like a tire that is at 35 psi... Don't see it happening... I suggest we kick this one over to the crew at Big Bang Theory and see what Dr. Sheldon Cooper says! Bazinga!

 

[Snick]

Now, as for 14.7 psia of any gas pushing its way into a container even a semi-permeable one like a tire that is at 49.7 psia...

Today is tiny nitpick day. There's mine!

 

[Dusty921]

Nitrogen fill: a fool and his money are soon parted.

Question: what do you think the tire is full of when you mount it to the rim? Plain air. You can add nitrogen to the tire, but it'll still have a large fraction of oxygen/argon/whatever in it.

Even better, these gases will slowly diffuse into an inflated tire until equilibrium is reached:


Source: http://www.barrystiretech.com/nitrogeninflation.html

As an old "tire & chassis" specialist with a Hooters ProCup team, I have hundreds of hours working with Nitrogen fills. I got rather proficient in purging tires of oxygen & the associated moisture, consistently achieving less than 5% humidity/oxygen by Hydrometer. It took, depending on the weather of the day, only two or three purge cycles to get this accomplished. This ritual provided predictably stable tire pressures and temperatures, resulting in superior handling, durability, and safety. N tires would also retain pressure longer and show little change in composition thru numerous extreme heat cycles. So you can bet your bippy I'll have it in my Elio tires.

 

[wheaters]

I've done my own research on this, it's advertised at one tyre place I've used in the past. Seeing as my aircraft has its tyres filled with nitrogen and we have a portable nitrogen inflation kit in the hangar for this purpose, I could do it for free. My personal thoughts on it.....not enough advantage in my case to even bother, not for a car. I have my own mains electric air compressor installed in my garage at home and will continue to use that instead. I've never had a problem with using air.

However, I might just borrow the jet oxygen kit and give the interior of the car a quick shot or two before I set off for home after work. That should give me a feeling of well being, before facing the traffic, at least temporarily.

 

[NSTG8R]

I've done my own research on this, it's advertised at one tyre place I've used in the past. Seeing as my aircraft has its tyres filled with nitrogen and we have a portable nitrogen inflation kit in the hangar for this purpose, I could do it for free. My personal thoughts on it.....not enough advantage in my case to even bother, not for a car. I have my own mains electric air compressor installed in my garage at home and will continue to use that instead. I've never had a problem with using air.

However, I might just borrow the jet oxygen kit and give the interior of the car a quick shot or two before I set off for home after work. That should give me a feeling of well being, before facing the traffic, at least temporarily.

You just made me laugh out loud Wheaters! When we'd go on detachments to El Centro, CA, I ran the LOX (liquid oxygen) cart to refill the LOX converters in the planes (F-14). The night before, most of the squadron was out drinking, and the next day there'd be a line of people (keeping their distance) waiting for me to purge the cart. I'd wave them over when I got done, and put my face shield under the vent and let them grab some breaths of pure (and ice cold) O2...big smiles on their faces as they walked away! Hurtin' to happy in 10 seconds flat.

 

[zelio]

You just made me laugh out loud Wheaters! When we'd go on detachments to El Centro, CA, I ran the LOX (liquid oxygen) cart to refill the LOX converters in the planes (F-14). The night before, most of the squadron was out drinking, and the next day there'd be a line of people (keeping their distance) waiting for me to purge the cart. I'd wave them over when I got done, and put my face shield under the vent and let them grab some breaths of pure (and ice cold) O2...big smiles on their faces as they walked away! Hurtin' to happy in 10 seconds flat.

I've heard of O2 bars but never understood why anyone would bother. I was on oxygen in Pocatello, ID and all it did is make me sleepy. I was so very happy to move to a lower elevation so I could go off O2! :-) Z