“When the sealant works as designed, most drivers never know it’s working. There is no pressure loss, and odds are the driver doesn’t see the object in the tire or it’s fallen out,” Rogers said.
Creating the rubbery sealant was tricky, Michelin engineers said. It must flow into punctures, but it can’t pool at the bottom of the tire when it’s parked. The material also must form an airtight seal, and flow at temperatures from scorching desert blacktop to a frigid winter night.
Michelin’s tires can theoretically keep going for days, though they will eventually need to be repaired or replaced, depending on how severely the puncture damaged the tire.
As Scotty notes in his video, the self-sealing idea goes back at least as far as WWII (he shows a picture of a self-sealing gas tank). Technovelgy readers know that Golden Age great Raymond Z. Gallun makes great use of self-sealing plastic for asteroid-based greenhouses in his 1951 classic Asteroid of Fear.
At that loud reverberation, the Venusian turned pasty-yellow...
"That was an alarming sound," Drake admitted patiently. "But the particle that made it was smaller than the head of a pin. It struck three inches of good steel. We have a layer of lead, to absorb the gamma ray, and a seal of compressed plastifoam to save the air if one comes through."
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 7/7/2019)
SpaceX Wants A Moonbase Alpha
'And he had been sent with troops, supplies and bombs to command Russia's most trusted post, the Moonbase.' - L. Ron Hubbard, 1948.
Can A Human Land A SpaceX Rocket On Its Tail?
'If she starts to roll sideways — blooey! The underjets only hold you up when they’re pointing down, you know.' - Stanley G. Weinbaum, 1936.
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Gaia - Why Stop With Just The Earth?
'But the stars are only atoms in larger space, and in that larger space the star-atoms could combine to form living matter, thinking matter, couldn't they?'
Microsoft VASA-1 Creates Personal Video From A Photo
'...to build up a video picture would require, say, ten million decisions every second. Mike, you're so fast I can't even think about it. But you aren't that fast.'