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Incidentally, the use of Kevlar may not have caught on for cars, but it's pretty common in bicycle tires, so it has in some sense succeeded in the original inte
by resoluteteeth 12y ago
Incidentally, the use of Kevlar may not have caught on for cars, but it's pretty common in bicycle tires, so it has in some sense succeeded in the original intended application in the end as well.
- hga 12y agoI think its use in tires is a lot more common now that radials have replaced the bias-ply tires that were most commonly used when Kevlar was invented. The latter are good for bad roads, but I have the impression that they're not particular about the reinforcing material they use. A material science engineer who worked at a DuPont nylon plant in the '80s mentioned that nylon was used for bias-ply tires for mostly Third World markets. Goodyear, at least, seems to make a number of models with Kevlar: https://www.google.com/search?q=kevlar+radial+tire https://www.google.com/search?q=kevlar+radial+tire But of course Kevlar is a trademark of DuPont, general patents on it have long expired. A more general search https://www.google.com/search?q=aramid+radial+tire https://www.google.com/search?q=aramid+radial+tire using aramid instead of Kevlar is also fruitful, especially this 1974 story http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/cen-v052n008.p007a http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/cen-v052n008.p007a about Goodyear entering the market with them. That's very well timed, less than half a year after the 1973 oil shock, when fuel efficiency became a very big thing. No doubt they were working on such tires, and the shock provided a perfect marketing opportunity, in addition to the other benefits Kevlar brought to the table. "Steel belted" is a phrase that I'm sure is hard to market against, as I recall it was used a lot in the '70s....