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Tire maker Michelin believes it has a technology, called Acorus, that volition protect low-profile tires and wheels from pothole damage. Acorus comprises a pair of flexible condom flanges fastened to a special alloy wheel to help blot the shock. That has the potential to mount ever-lower-profile tires without the fright that they won't survive even the offset pothole.

Michelin developed Acorus with wheel maker Maxion. Any tire can be used, but the wheels are specially designed. The first automakers will have admission to the tire-wheel combinations this agenda yr. It's unclear when individuals can retrofit existing cars. Today wouldn't be too soon in wintery, pothole-infested states.

Flexible flanges on Michelin's Acorus tire should protect a low-profile tire and wheel from pothole damage.

How Acorus Works: Bend, Don't Intermission

According to Michelin and Maxion, the Acorus system starts with a special, aluminum-alloy "wheel torso." Two flexible rubber flanges are attached to the wheel, and the tire is mounted to flanges. When the wheel encounters a pothole, the flange flexes forth with the prophylactic sidewall to avoid impairment to the tire, or the tire and cycle. In that location is likewise available a cosmetic trim slice that could alter the expect of the wheel.

How much pothole tin the new tire-wheel combo handle? According to Michelin, "In tests with a 285/30R21 tire driven through a pothole, the standard rim version punctured the tire at 28 kph [17 mph]whereas theFlexible Cycle with the Michelin Acorus technology did non puncture, or sustain harm at any speed" driven over a pothole 80 mm deep (3.ane inches), 700 mm long (25.half dozen inches), at a 70-degree angle of impact.

Pieter Klinkers, the CEO of Maxion Wheels, said, "This is a game changer for wheels." Michelin says the engineering is good for the environs, considering fewer tires will be discarded long while in that location is still tread (and life) on the tires.

Unlike Michelin'south 1975 TRX tire-and-wheel system, any tire in a 19-inch bicycle size (or larger) can be used. TRX was developed to meliorate handling and comfort even with low-sidewall tires. TRX was offered by a half-dozen automakers, simply car owners didn't like the limited option of tires, mostly from Michelin, although Avon, Continental, Dunlop and Goodyear also produced tires in TRX sizes. The TRX tire-cycle combo got general favorable reviews for treatment and performance. All that'south left at present of TRX is a handful of sizes through the Michelin Archetype catalog, for owners of classic cars who desire them to be historically right.

A cutaway shows the Acorus flanges (in yellowish) in normal, loade, and deflected states.

Issues to Consider Earlier Buying

It's not clear how before long the Acorus technology will become directly available to owners of existing cars. Potential adopters should look to encounter how the tire-cycle combination compares with traditional tire-wheel combos on cost and performance. If information technology's college, information technology's probably withal less than spending $1,000 on a tire-bicycle insurance bundle when you buy a new auto, or replacing the tires and wheels downwards the road. Performance enthusiasts volition want to see if this is a hot setup for runway days also equally driving on American's poorly maintained highways.

Over the by generation, sidewalls have gotten significantly lower — this at the same fourth dimension equally America isn't spending plenty coin to maintain highways.

A low-profile tire is generally considered one where the sidewall is less than half as high as the tire is broad, such as a 225/50R18, meaning the tire is 225 mm wide, the sidewall is one-half (50 percent) equally high every bit the tire is wide, and the wheel is 18-inches in diameter (tiptop). A generation agone, a typical passenger car tire might by a 70 serial; now information technology dips equally depression as thirty series.

Every bit for the proper name Acorus, the company said it comes from "'Acorus Calamus,' a wetland plant that looks like a reed, which features in a famous French fable 'The Oak and the Reed,' with the wisdom that 'a reed bends only does not suspension.'"