Nitrogen in corvette tires, good or bad?

[Remo]

Nitrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen, Oxygen...What Should We Do?

 

[Mac]

Now that you mention it, the Earth's atmosphere is made up of


Nitrogen -- N2 -- 78.084%
Oxygen -- O2 -- 20.9476%


So my tires are already pretty much full of nitrogen, even without Costco putting green valve caps on my stems.



-Mac

 

[jrose7004]

Put methane in your tires and see what happens!

 

[Paul Higg]

Nitrogen. Well they use it in aircraft tires for ONE reason. Fires.

As a plane rolls down the runway on takeoff if there's a brake stuck it may cause hot brakes. Then when the gear is sucked into the fuselage the brakes can get so hot they can cause the tire to explode and cause a fire.

I have seen this many times when I was in the Air Force, hot brakes can explode a tire but with no oxygen, no fire.

At the major airline I'm with ALL tires are filled with nitrogen but only for fire prevention.

 

[Mac]

hot brakes can explode a tire but with no oxygen, no fire.

Do they somehow evaluate the tire before they pump in nitrogen? No?? So there is still some oxygen in the tire... and unless the explosion happens in space, there's plenty of oxygen in the environment around the hot brakes. I'm thinking fire suppression isn't a logical conclusion.

-Mac

 

[Paul Higg]

They mount the tire and fill it with nitrogen.

And, I only have 30 years of aircraft maintenance experience with all my licenses and schools I've been to. So yeah, I guess I don't know what I'm talking about.

Ask Boeing if you don't believe me.

 

[Vettehead Mikey]

Paul is correct that one advantage of nitrogen in aircraft tires is the lack of flammability. Another is the much misunderstood (and mostly irrelevant in the case of cars) goal of avoiding moisture induction when servicing the wheel and tire assembly.

Unlike cars, an aircraft may start it's day in 100*F+ tropical temps with 100% humidity and end it's day in -40*F arctic conditions. Enroute, the ambient temperatures can be in the area of -50 or -60*. Any moisture inadvertently pumped into the wheel ass'y at point of departure would most likely turn into a solid lump of ice.

At touch down, the still frozen wheel will be required to go from zero to 150+mph in less than a second. Any imbalance could throw braking performance or handling off severely.

A big, big reason it's used and completely overlooked by the tin foil hat brigade is simple logistics. Many aircraft are serviced out on the ramp far way from an AC outlet to plug an air compressor into. It's much simpler to have a cart with bottles of nitrogen to wheel around and much simpler to recharge those bottles with nitrogen than maintaining a separate fleet of dry air bottles.

Many aircraft wheels are made of magnesium- the corrosion factor with this application is not comparable to steel or aluminum car wheels.

Again- if it's free, why not. Other than that, I'll take my standard 78% mix that I also use for breathing.

 

[Mac]

Paul is correct that one advantage of nitrogen in aircraft tires is the lack of flammability.

Sorry if I came off as flippant. I wasn't saying Paul was wrong... I was just trying to figure the lack of flammability worked.

Other than Mikey confirming Paul's righteousness and Paul confirming his +30 years of experience and expertise, no-one has offered any kind of explanation of this phenomenon. I'm still no closer to understanding how the bit of extra nitrogen works the trick.

-Mac

 

[GerryLP]

What is I fill my Vette's tires with Helium...would it go faster because it will weigh less?:L:eyerole

GerryLP

 

[Mac]

What is I fill my Vette's tires with Helium...would it go faster because it will weigh less?:L:eyerole

GerryLP

We've all heard of the advantages of lowering unsprung weight...

-Mac