Theinvention of the tire dates from the 19th century:in 1830, the Frenchman Charles Dietz was the first to dress the wheels of certain vehicles with a rubber strip, placed between the wheel and the metal rim. The Briton John Boyd Dunlop, to dampen the vibrations transmitted by the wheels of his son's tricycle, invented the pneumatic tire in 1888, consisting of an envelope surrounding an air chamber inflated by means of a pump. Other bandages of the same material appear over the decades, until arriving at tubular bandages wrapping a piano wire.
History of the tire
The ancestor of the tire is the pneumatic tire, a device that replaced the solid rubber tires of horse-drawn carriages and early carriages . The first practical pneumatic tire, using compressed air to support the weight of the vehicle, was invented by the Scotsman R. W. Thomson, who was granted a patent in 1845. But the invention fell into oblivion.
John Boyd Dunlop, a Scottish veterinarian based in Ireland, found the road past his house bumpy. He tinkers with the wheels of his son's tricycle to line them with rubber tubes. Then in 1887, he developed an inner tube wrapped in a woven cotton canvas, which he glued to a wooden rim.
Towards industrial production
Dunlop perfected his invention with the Englishman James Moore, winner of the first cycling race in the Parc de Saint-Cloud. He patented it in 1888 and built a bicycle tire factory using the American Charles Goodyear's rubber vulcanization process. Then it's the turn of the French Michelin to develop the removable tire that makes repairs possible in the event of a puncture, and in 1895 designs the first car on tires, called "L'Eclair".
André Michelin and Edouard Michelin definitively linked their names to the application of tires to cycles and cars. The Michelin brothers focused on designing tires for bicycles, horse-drawn carriages, automobiles and airplanes.
In 1946, Michelin cemented its industrial dominance by designing the radial tire, with much greater resistance than conventional tires thanks to the superimposition of several layers of rubber. Then Michelin invents the puncture-proof tire, which will consolidate its position as world leader.
To go further
- The Fabulous History of Inventions - From Mastery of Fire to Immortality. Dunod, 2018.
- Short stories of transport:Or how the means of transport have evolved since their invention, by Pierre LEFEVRE. bayard, 2014.