Chameleon Tire
More than a quarter of all passenger vehicles on the road in the United States have one or more underinflated tires-a condition that can lead to tread separation and blowouts. The National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration estimates that up to 10,000 injuries could be prevented annually if all vehicles had systems that warned drivers of underinflation. Frank Kelley of the University of Akron in Ohio and Barry Rosenbaum of Omnova Solutions, a chemical company in Fairlawn, OH, have devised a simple solution: a rubber material that changes color from black to red when tire temperatures rise above 77 C (underinflated tires get much hotter than properly inflated tires). The special rubber contains a material that changes color in response to temperature; a strip of the rubber could be built into the sidewalls of tires, visible as a red ring when things get too hot. The researchers have formed a company called TCS Polymers and hope to sell the rubber to the tire industry in three to five years.
Keep Reading
Most Popular
A Roomba recorded a woman on the toilet. How did screenshots end up on Facebook?
Robot vacuum companies say your images are safe, but a sprawling global supply chain for data from our devices creates risk.
A startup says it’s begun releasing particles into the atmosphere, in an effort to tweak the climate
Make Sunsets is already attempting to earn revenue for geoengineering, a move likely to provoke widespread criticism.
10 Breakthrough Technologies 2023
These exclusive satellite images show that Saudi Arabia’s sci-fi megacity is well underway
Weirdly, any recent work on The Line doesn’t show up on Google Maps. But we got the images anyway.
Stay connected
Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review
Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.