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Minutia
Burning Rubber
By Jara Anton
The wheel was invented a very long time ago. John Boyd Dunlop was a Scottish veterinarian and the recognized inventor of the first practical pneumatic or inflatable tire. He originally created the tire for his son's tricycle. His patent was for a bicycle tire, granted in 1888.
However, Robert William Thomson invented the actual first vulcanized rubber pneumatic tire. Thomson patented his pneumatic tire in 1845; his invention worked well but was too costly to catch on. Dunlop's tire patented in 1888 did, and so he received the most recognition. The first rubber tire was invented in 1839 by Charles Goodyear. Up until this point, riding in cars was very uncomfortable because the older wheels made the ride rough.
In 1830, Charles Goodyear wanted to make a rubber product that the general public could put to use. He bought a truckload of raw rubber from a shoe factory and began his experiment to turn it into a complete solid. There was a small set back when Goodyear was sent to prison for not paying his debt from the rubber purchase. But, this did not stop him. While he was in prison he continued his experiments. When he was finally released, the product he had been working on had the consistency of gum.
He then discovered that he was able to harden the rubber by mixing it with sulfur and then treating it with an acid gas. While tossing the rubber ball around, it accidentally landed on top of a heated stove. The rubber began to change phase and melt, instead of scorching. This was a surprise to Goodyear. When he began to scrape the rubber off of the stove he realized it had hardened to the consistency he was aiming for. With the discovery of vulcanization, and the beginning of the industrial revolution in both Europe and North America, the tire evolved from a rubberized canvas protecting a rubber tube to a complex fabric, steel and elastomeric composition.
The first rubber tires appeared in the mid-1800s. They were solid or cushion tires in which the rubber itself carried the load, absorbed shocks, and resisted cutting and abrasions. The pneumatic or air-filled tire, which carried the load and absorbed shocks by the compressed air in the tire casing, was patented as early as 1845. Solid rubber tires were preferred over pneumatic tires because of their durability, so pneumatic tires fell into disuse. The popularity of bicycles in the late 1800s revived the idea of the pneumatic tire, and in 1888 a Belfast veterinary surgeon named John Boyd Dunlop obtained a patent for a pneumatic bicycle tire.
The first use of pneumatic tires for automobiles was pioneered by the Michelin brothers, André and Édouard. They equipped a car with pneumatic tires and drove it in the 1895 Paris-Bordeaux road race. Though André and Édouard didn't win the race, they generated popular interest in pneumatic tires, and Michelin & Cie became a leading producer of tires in Europe. At the same time, solid rubber tires disappeared from the highways, mostly because of legislation that discouraged their use because they were hard on the roads.
In 1898 Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company-named after George Goodyear, the discoverer of vulcanized rubber-was formed in America by Frank Seiberling. Then Firestone Tire & Rubber Company was started by Harvey Firestone in 1900. Other tire makers followed.
For the next fifty years automobile tires were made up of an inner tube that contained compressed air and an outer casing that protected the inner tube and provided traction. The rubber that made up the casing was reinforced by layers or "plys" of rubberized fabric cords embedded in the rubber. The tires made during this period were known as bias-ply tires because the plys ran across the tire in alternating diagonal layers at about a 55 degree angle to the wheel rim. Bias-ply tires continue to be made and are sold as authentic equipment for antique and collector cars that were made during this period.
Both the American automobile manufacturers and the tire companies fought the radial tire. Detroit, home of the American automobile, was afraid of how much it would cost to redesign automobile suspensions to accept radial tires. The tire industry was afraid of how much it would cost to retool the entire American tire industry to make the more costly radial tires. Not happy with the threat of having to make tremendous investments, most American automobile makers and tire manufacturers wrote off the radial tire as "a freak product that isn't going anywhere."
Goodyear finally produced a radial tire in 1977 by investing billions of dollars in radial technology. Other American tire companies either merged or were bought out. All American new cars came with radial tires by 1983.