DailyDirt: Re-Designing The Wheel Again

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Tue, Jun 10th 2014 5:00pm — Michael Ho

Some folks want to avoid re-inventing the wheel, but sometimes there are reasons to try. Some people don't like the look of spokes or hubs in the middle of their tires. Maybe you just want to get a futuristic look or be eye-catching. Here are a few wheel designs that are a bit unusual, but they might be a bit more complicated than traditional wheel assemblies.

The SoftWheel is a wheel design where all the spokes of the wheel are replaced with shock absorbers. This design was originally created for an off-road wheelchair, but it could be used in almost any other vehicle that uses wheels, too. [url]
Wheels without any spokes or hubs have been around for a while. These wheels look cool, so they're used in fancy motorcycles and futuristic-looking cars. [url]
If you really don't like spokes on your bike wheels, you can try a bike where the gears are built into the inner rim of the back wheel. There's reason why it's called the Lunatic Cycle -- it doesn't really look that comfortable or practical. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: bikes, design, hubless, shock absorbers, spokeless, spokes, tires, transportation, wheel, wheelchair

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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jun 2014 @ 6:42pm

That shock absorber wheel, well, that's a lot of rotating weight. Not very efficient. That's why cars are made the way they are today. Because engineer.
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crashsuit (profile), 11 Jun 2014 @ 11:03am

I wish the tweel had gained more in popularity and use. It's been around for a while, but Michelin doesn't seem to have wanted to do much with it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tweel
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Cynyr (profile), 22 Jun 2014 @ 2:12pm

how would it work on a bicycle? Seems like the brakes would need to move as well, since the distance from the rotational center of the wheel to the edge varies.

Also, as noted above this wheel seems like it would have a high rotational inertia which would make for a lot of work when trying to accelerate (or decelerate) the wheel.

I can't help but think: "Whats wrong with a normal suspension?" Though I admit for the most part that is not an issue on a wheel chair.

There is also loopwheel, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPKY1pFyqu8 which is similar, but still suffers the braking issue.
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