As tyres fail, large chunks of delaminated rubber is thrown in the path of oncoming motorists, meaning they are left to try and dodge the debris. Tyre debris can tear off bumpers, damage radiators, and even bounce up and smash windscreens. Either way, if you hit one, it doesn’t usually end well. Lorry drivers are often just as surprised, and are as much as a spectator as anyone else in guessing where the rubber caucus might end up.
The challenge
The challenge this month is therefore to come up with a method of predicting catastrophic failure in lorry tyres to reduce it from happening, or even stop it all together.
You might choose to make the tyres entirely from rubber, or find an innovative way of ensuring the rubber stays attached to the rim during failure, so it will not fall away in to the road.
Another tack might be to look at monitoring the tyres to see if there are any warning signs. Poor tyre care can be a major cause of failure, including over or under inflating the tyre and also excess wear. Other factors can include excessive speed, impacts, tyre age, or overloading. So, although failure might seem sudden, there are warning signs.
Any solution like this must be cheap to install, have enough power to make it viable for several months or more before recharge. But critically, it should give warning of any signs that there is a problem. This might include a loss of tyre pressure, excessive heat, or possibly that an impact has occurred over a certain ‘g’ rating.
And, finally, regardless of your proposed method, catastrophic failure will still be a distinct possibility. In such an event, the driver should be given an alarm that rapid deflation has occurred so that they can pull over as quickly and as safely as possible, before the tyre comes off the rim and falls in to harm’s way.
Our solution comes from British firm TyrePal. It has produced a tyre pressure monitoring system (TPMS) to help OEM trailer builders and trailer fleet operators tackle the problem of tyre blowouts on HGV freight trailers.
Its TeleTPMS is a remote tyre pressure monitoring system for commercial fleet vehicles comprises of a set of sensors, which can be fitted inside or outside the tyres and a dashboard-mounted module that displays the pressure of the vehicle’s tyres for the driver's benefit.
An indicator operates independently of the truck to provide an immediate visual and audible alert when the sensors report rapid pressure loss, tyre overheating, under-inflation or over-inflation.
The module also transmits location and tyre data via GPRS to a remote database.
Peter Tilliotson, business development manager of TyrePal, said: “Due to the weight distribution and design of HGV trailers, especially double-decker trailers, if tyres pick up slow punctures, they often go unnoticed until it is too late.
“When the improperly inflated tyre is forced to work, it heats up and can cause blowouts. This leads to downtime and risks hazard to the driver and other road users. Apart from being very unsafe it will also increase fuel usage significantly."
The device operates on an internal battery - automatically recharged when power is available, either from the trailer supply or by connection to the trailer lights. When the trailer is not in use, the indicator goes into a sleep mode and automatically turns back on when there is any vibration.
The device is also full GPS trackable, allowing fleet managers to track their vehicles tyre pressure remotely.
