Loopwheels: A vibration-reducing wheel with integral suspension
loopwheels.com
loopwheels.com
1.https://www.loopwheels.com/wp-content/themes/meat/library/im...
2. https://www.loopwheels.com/technical/how-does-it-work/
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Deforming the wheel means far less mass is moved and thus momentum. This is why we use air filled rubber tires in the first place, but they have real size limits. So, this could actually provide a smoother ride.
Probably not worth it for a bike, but someone with a broken bone for example can be extremely sensitive to shocks.
On a bike the total weight also includes the fork and parts of the suspension. Not sure about wheelchairs, but I suspect deforming the center of the wheel still easily cuts unsprung mass in half.
Also: quite a nice landing page!
Your body weight is constantly pressing down the rotating axis from the center of the wheel so in order to move forward you'll be spending energy on compressing the next section of the wheel equally much? Even if you get some of that energy back once the rear section of the wheel decompresses it's never going to be 100%.
It might have some benefits compared to a loosely inflated tire in terms of more parameters to calibrate and less road friction but this will never come close to a suspension locked in the vertical direction on the frame in terms of efficiency. Maybe this is not an important factor for wheel chairs?
Edit: Actually the softwheel has an efficiency comparison which claims it's more efficient than both rigid frame and fork suspension, even on flat ground http://softwheel.technology/technology/#softwheel-science-wo..., maybe if you bike fast enough the wheel never has time to compress so it's still considered round and center?
Not that the alternative posted of "softwheel" are any better, 2250/2800 $ for a couple wheels?
I have quickly browsed through both sites and they seem to put an accent on lower maintenance costs, but for that kind of money you can buy new (traditional) wheels every other month or so ...
Bonus, an article (seemingly actually published) on the matter, it's a short one, only three pages that is IMHO worth reading, only to have an idea of what can be published:
http://www.iosrjournals.org/iosr-jmce/papers/NCRIME-2018/Vol...
Excerpt:
The loop wheels concept is found which has become a very beneficial to the world which reduces the wear and tear of bearing that makes novice after completion its specific life which increases the cost and maintenance of a bicycle. In this case the loop wheels gives a better results and reduces this all the bad impacts created by the normal cycles and gives a one new morning to the innovation.
2-4x the price doesn't seem too bad tbh; its specialist gear for a non-standard use case
[0] http://www.epc-wheelchairs.co.uk/wheels-wheel-parts/rear-whe...
For comparison, a lightweight Zipp wheelset comes in a just over 1Kg. A mid range lightweight set will be in the 1.4Kg range.
There are other ways to make a road bike handle bumps and road buzz, e.g. specifically constructed carbon seat post, or flexible seat stays.
A good race to watch for these kind of things is the Paris Roubaix, some of the bikes had rubber inserts to the seat stays a few years ago, but now have enough damping just from carbon layup of that section.
As well, tires are already integral suspension and often enough for bike applications.
What's changing is the internal structure and suspension.
I'm not an expert on this stuff, but I would be surprised if it were as efficient as a normal wheel when on flat ground. The vibration study page states they will publish numbers on the rolling efficiency of the wheel 'soon'.
Our joint use of the public streets is based on a certain trust that drivers will not try to plow into people. That doesn't mean you have to recklessly abandon all precaution, but it does mean that there are always going to be edge cases that are unmitigated. I think the vehicle based terror attacks have sadly illustrated that point.
Walking the streets in a defensive mode that assumes low speed sneaking up by a driver intent to kill, or being completely oblivious to the surrounding, while at the same time driving a vehicle with defects in its core functions feels like an edge-case. The near ubiquity of people walking or cycling with headphones, or fully being fully engaged with their mobile phones seems to support that.
Cars are dangerous and operated without proper care for sure, but there are very, very few injuries from ultra low speed collisions with cars.
On the other hand there is enormous evidence of serious stress caused by traffic noise having an impact on health.
The whole 'car noise' thing was lobbied by car-makers hoping to cash in on a 'custom ringtones for cars', modeled after the mobile phone market of the 90's. Do you believe that these random noises will avoid more deads and injuries than those created by the resulting stress and 'postal' incidents by those having to involuntarily suffer this?
There are better options. Have slow moving cars emit a low powered radio or radar signal instead. Very compact and extremely low cost detectors and emitters already exist for those. Those that wish get a proximity warning without harming innocents, and as a added bonus this also works for people with reduced hearing, either because the have a hearing problem, or because they are wearing headphones.
The only ones that would suffer a tiny bit are the car makers missing out on selling sounds. Can't say I'm very sympathetic to that crowd as they have amply shown a lack of responsibility and care for people's health and well-being . As usual, the benefits they want to pocket are once more blatantly oblivious to the societal downsides as they have been fully externalized for them.
This is singularly the worst idea I have ever heard in my life
I was talking with a blind guy a while back about the beeping crosswalk things and he was saying he had to quit walking to the corner store because the intersection didn't beep and he almost got run over too many times since he had a hard time figuring out which direction he was able to walk by listening to the car noises alone which near silent cars would only exacerbate. Probably be easier to make all the crosswalks beep instead of forcing cars to make unnecessary noise pollution but until that time...
When we are talking noise terrorists with car mods added specifically to pollute the audiosphere, that is different ofc.
The side-to-side rigidity is my worry about it, but I imagine that could be arbitrarily increased by widening the loops.
Presumably the site was designed by someone close to the company, who obviously knows the product and didn't get it tested on users who didn't know the product (or they'd have picked this up)
Now I agree there is a video of a wheelchair loading, so context is clear now. Would be curious to know if someone changed it.
How much is a standard set of wheelchair wheels?
Apparently due to the shortage of rubber during WW1 which made pneumatic tyres infeasible but I also wonder about oscillations.
But with composite leaf springs, I'm guessing that they could make them less perfectly elastic. That'd damp out oscillations, but also increase rolling friction on bumpy terrain. However, vibration also dissipates energy. My mechanics is inadequate, but they very likely optimized.