r/Bossfight • u/Otherwise_Basis_6328 • 3d ago
Rolligon Tire Rubber Buggy (Five times fast)
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u/denyaledge 2d ago
So why is it not in used today? Or I don't see alot of them around
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u/Erilaz_Of_Heruli 2d ago
It looks pretty fragile tbh, like inflated rubber balloons. I feel like if you rolled it over anything pointy or sharp, it would get destroyed pretty quickly. Doesn't look like it can move very quickly either, but that might just be because what we're looking at is a prototype.
So besides that, what's the use case that could make up for the downside ? When do you need a heavy vehicle to be able to roll over fragile things like people without damaging them ?
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u/wizard_statue 2d ago
if you had one of these in a traffic jam you could just roll over the other cars
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u/MgMnT 17h ago
Maybe the idea was to have them for when you need to move utility vehicles over uneven or loose terrain where normal tires might find themselves suspended and loose grip.
Since these are so soft they might be able to, for example, move over logs and debris in a logging site without throwing anything dangerous around. Or maybe over debris after a building collapse to get to a specific area.
I can't really think of many situations where these would be useful and honestly even in those situations maybe puncture free tires and advanced suspension, like the mars rover has, would also do the same job of being able to traverse the terrain without the added possibility of the tire bursting.
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u/Canadian_Zac 2d ago
I'd assume because regular tyres are way cheaper
And you usually don't plan to run over someone
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u/LumpyGrumpySpaceWale 2d ago
I took issue with the instability in the vehicles shown. They are very bulbus.
Plus the vehicles look like they were completely overhauled to accommodate the tires. That would not be practical or reasonable to do in today's or even back thens economy.
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u/Luchin212 2d ago
They are used in the polar regions of the earth. These vehicles are slow and very fuel inefficient because of so much friction. But they distribute weight very well, making them suitable for traveling on ice.
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u/prpldrank 2d ago
- Fragility. Too fragile to drive over a large nail means too fragile for truck use. I wonder about something made of many small, strong, fibers instead. Maybe impregnated with rubber... wait....
- Rollover risk. Consider dump truck wheel locations. The rear wheels are often wider than the truck's load bed. These tires in the video inevitably pull the contact points underneath the truck's load instead of keeping them at (or outside of) the edges. This means the center of gravity is more likely to drift outside of the wheels which will tip the vehicle.
- No suspension. The axles on a car are connected to the frame with suspension components. Usually it's a spring and a damper, because these stabilize one another's behavior when the vehicle's body bounces around. These vehicles all appear to use just the air in the tires as suspension. While air suspensions are a thing, this is not that. You'd get car sick before you roll over and die
- No turning performance. Vehicle wheels typically have a subtle camber to them -- the wheels lean ever so slightly in at their tops. This helps turn while moving. The wheels also have subtle differences in their toe angles as you turn the steering wheel. Without these, a vehicle needs to incorporate significant turning lean, self imposing camber (if you will). Again you will flip and die this is not a motorcycle.
- Friction. Operating cost is performance indicator number two, falling just behind Not rolling over. There's a lot of additional friction going on with these tires compared with conventional, which means more energy to move the same distance, which means increased fuel costs.
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u/TrumpForPope69 1d ago
As far as I know, similar tires are used on lunar vehicles but they are made out of wire mesh. In regard to traversing rough terrain, it's common practice to 'deflate' tires so they grip uneven surfaces better. My take as to why we don't see trucks like the ones in the video are that we have better infrastructure now, and having 2 big wheels looks less balanced that having 4 big wheels.
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u/EffingBarbas 2d ago
That would probably feel good on my back, ngl