Run-flat tire for military could be made in Akron
It takes a bullet and keeps on rolling.
And that award-winning military run-flat tire proposed by a small Akron manufacturer and design firm might be produced in the city that is synonymous with tire making.
Potential bumps in the road remain before American Engineering Group gets a go-ahead and contract to start tire production for the U.S. military.
City officials are rooting for the company.
American Engineering Group’s top executives are confident that what they have trademarked as the “Pressure Zero Tire,” which has been years in development, has the right stuff at the right price to save military lives under trying conditions. They also think they might have come up with the most innovative tire design since the radial, and one that also has commercial potential.
“We’ve been focusing on getting the military applications going,” said Jon Gerhardt, AEG technical director. “We see this as an opportunity to save some of our military people’s lives. They’re in scary situations, and if we can get them out of there, that’s our goal.”
AEG, founded in 2000 by experts in polymers and other materials, has a good track record in designing and developing products for a variety of industries, including an advanced biomedical hip implant. (Another current project involves developing a football helmet designed to prevent concussions.)
Gerhardt said AEG first designed and created a runflat light-truck tire for military application several years ago. Early testing involved shooting the tires and then running them on vehicles on a farm in the Stark County town of Hartville.
“It worked and still carried load,” Gerhardt said.
But the next step, pre-production prototyping, stalled because of lack of funding by an AEG customer, Gerhardt said.
Then the Defense Department came calling, looking for a lighter run-flat tire than what the military uses on some of its vehicles.
“Our system does have a reduced (weight), 10 to 15 percent lighter for the whole system than what they currently had,” Gerhardt said.
A lighter run-flat tire system is important because that, in turn, would allow military vehicles to carry more payload, said Mark Fox, a Defense Department spokesman who also is an engineer and part of the military’s AEG tire-testing program.
The military needs its vehicles to keep moving even if tires have been shot, Fox said. “The tire has to survive longer than a typical ground vehicle, in harsh conditions,” he said.
AEG’s tire is made in part with corded carbon fiber and a lightweight, flexible internal metal skeleton. The design won a top award at a recent military trade show.
The military tests and evaluations of 100 tires will continue until the end of the year. If AEG’s design passes, the military wants production tires in the field sooner rather than later.
AEG’s test tires have been made by a niche manufacturer in Pennsylvania, but the company ideally wants production versions made in Akron if the military awards a contract.
“We’re rooting for them,” said Sam DeShazior, Akron’s deputy mayor for economic development. “They have gone to all the right places. They need the green light.”
He said his office has been talking with AEG about its run-flat tire for about five years, with current discussions involving finding a production facility. The factory initially would employ about 20 people who could produce as many as 1,000 tires a month — and then scale up depending on demand.
Akron, once known as the Rubber Capital of the World because of its numerous tire factories, is home to one Goodyear NASCAR racing-tire factory and one Bridgestone factory that makes Firestone-brand IndyCar racing tires.