Disruptive Technology Speeds Tyre Replacement in the Field

Tyron Runflat has reached the fourth stage of the British Army’s Warfighting Experiment (AWE) 2020 with its market-disrupting multi-piece rubber runflat tyre solutions for military armoured vehicles, designed to keep a vehicle mobile in the event of a tyre strike caused by IED or ballistic attack.

AWE20 acts as a capability spotlight to allow the army to explore emerging and innovative technologies that may be suitable for rapid exploitation to meet land force requirements and overcome the challenges of the modern battlefield. The solution is one of around 80 submissions that have made it through a series of evaluations to reach this stage.

As Tyron runflat systems are made from rubber, they offer military vehicles a number of practical benefits in the field; rubber absorbs shock from impingement caused by curb strikes, potholes and operating in a hostile environment; it also drastically reduces the vibration and stresses that are transmitted through the runflat to the wheels, axles and drive shafts; secondly, rubber is a compliant material and therefore prevents damage caused to the tyre from impingement between the runflat and the inside of the tyre. As a result, rubber minimises damage to the inner liner, body plies and/or bead areas of the tyre that can occur in runflats made of rigid materials such as plastics/composites – damage that may eventually lead to the splitting, blistering, bulging and/or separation of tyre structural plies and pressure inflation loss or tyre failure.

“The advantages of rubber runflat solutions translate into a clearly-defined advantage on the modern battlefield, where the threat to armoured vehicles by IEDs and similar continues to be significant,” commented Peter Simson, Director at Tyron. “That advantage is simple – our technology keeps vehicles moving beyond defined military standards of 50km, preferably 75km with two or more tyres deflated and a minimum of two hours off-road negotiating hills and obstacles like curb strikes. In other words, we get vehicles and their crew back to base.”

With an eye to reducing the army’s logistics footprint, Tyron is also targeting the need for field serviceability and flexibility of use in service, with its modular runflat systems that are field mountable and demountable and do not require a hydraulic press to squeeze the runflat into the tyre.

“The reality is that military forces are still having to manage huge logistics tailbacks for their armoured vehicle tyres in-theatre – including having to fly wheel structures to the nearest base to replace the tyre when it is damaged, because the equipment to replace the tyre is not mobile or transportable,” Simson explained. “That is why what we are demonstrating to the British Army at AWE20 is game-changing technology: rubber runflats that keep vehicles moving and can be replaced in the field with standard tooling and equipment.”