Michelin To Start Mass Production of Airless Tyre

Michelin Tyres has set the revolutionary Tweel branded tyres into production at their Piedmont, South Carolina plant in the United States of America. The Tweel will be used for commercial applications to begin with and an investment of $50 million has gone into the new plant.

The Tweel concept was envisaged at the Michelin Americas Research Company in Greenville, South Carolina and a non-pneumatic tyre or in plain terms an airless tyre. Tweel brings together the tyre and wheel assembly into one unit.

So what does the Tweel comprise of, you ask? Well it has a rigid hub connected to a shear beam by means of flexible, deformable polyurethane spokes, all functioning as a single unit. Of course, since it is airless, you don't have to worry about filling any air or a bigger concern; flat tyres.

Hence, it can be used for off the road applications like, construction and agriculture which makes it revolutionary in a way. In fact NASA has a contract with Michelin to develop such but more specialized tyres for their Lunar Rover. The new plant gives Michelin the ability to increase output of the Michelin X Tweel SSL skid-steer tyres and begin production of the new Michelin X Tweel TurfTM as original equipment supplier to John Deere.