Airless Solid Tires: Another Innovation of Rubber for Industry

Say goodbye to the hassle of inflating tires—it’s worry-free and efficient. There’s no need for regular tire pressure checks, let alone frequent tire repairs or replacements. For industrial vehicles and construction machinery, time is equivalent to money and efficiency. These vehicles often require long hours of non-stop operation; any work stoppage caused by tire issues can result in significant economic losses.

Airless solid tires eliminate tedious processes like inflation and tire patching, greatly improving vehicle utilization and work efficiency. In logistics warehouses, forklifts handle large volumes of cargo daily. With airless solid tires, forklifts are always ready for use—no delays in loading or unloading due to tire problems, and logistics turnover speed is significantly accelerated.

Airless solid tires also excel in terms of safety. Their entire body is made of full rubber, boasting first-class puncture resistance and fundamentally eliminating the risk of tire blowouts. Whether on port pavements covered with sharp gravel or uneven, debris-strewn construction sites, these tires navigate smoothly as if on flat ground, ensuring stable operation.

At ports, container loaders and unloaders move among various goods daily, and the ground is often littered with sharp objects like fallen metal parts. Ordinary pneumatic tires are easily punctured, but airless solid tires handle such conditions with ease. This guarantees safe operation, prevents safety accidents caused by blowouts, and protects the lives of workers and the company’s property.

Wear resistance is crucial for tires, as they rub against the ground frequently in various working conditions. The rubber material used in airless solid tires features a tough elastomer structure—like equipping the tire with a sturdy armor—that effectively resists wear from friction. Additionally, adding fillers such as carbon black to the rubber further enhances its wear resistance significantly; carbon black acts like reinforcing fibers in armor, taking the rubber’s wear resistance to a higher level.

On port container trailers, airless solid tires travel long distances on rough pavements daily. Even after extended use, their wear remains minimal, and their replacement frequency is drastically lower than that of ordinary tires—saving enterprises substantial tire procurement costs.

Moreover, airless solid tires adopt a thickened tread rubber layer design, which is equivalent to adding an extra shield outside the "armor." When the tire rubs against the ground, the thickened tread layer better withstands friction, slows down wear, and greatly extends the tire’s service life. For heavy-duty trucks in mines, even when driving on mine roads filled with sharp gravel and extremely harsh conditions, airless solid tires maintain good performance for a long time. This reduces downtime caused by tire wear and improves mining efficiency.

Through rational formula design, rubber materials are infused with additives like antioxidants and UV absorbers—similar to giving the tire long-lasting vitality. Antioxidants effectively prevent oxygen from reacting with rubber molecules and stop the breakage of rubber molecular chains, thus maintaining the rubber’s elasticity and strength. UV absorbers absorb ultraviolet rays, avoiding free radical reactions in rubber caused by UV exposure and preventing the rubber from hardening and cracking.

For engineering machinery used outdoors for extended periods, airless solid tires are exposed to sunlight, oxygen, and high temperatures year-round. However, due to the excellent aging resistance of their rubber materials, the tires rarely suffer from aging or cracking and consistently maintain stable performance, ensuring the normal operation of engineering machinery.

Even after long-term exposure to wind, sun, and high-temperature baking, the rubber of airless solid tires retains good physical properties without significant performance degradation due to aging. This not only reduces tire replacement frequency and lowers usage costs but also improves the reliability and safety of equipment operation. In logistics parks, electric handling vehicles operate outdoors all year round; with airless solid tires, there’s no need to worry about tire failures caused by aging, ensuring the smooth progress of cargo handling and enhancing the operational efficiency of logistics parks.

In the industrial sector, equipment such as forklifts and port machinery face high-intensity operational tasks daily, placing extremely high demands on tire performance. Airless solid tires, with their high load-bearing capacity and wear resistance, have become the ideal choice for such equipment.

During frequent cargo loading and unloading, forklifts require constant starts, stops, and turns, so tires must withstand enormous pressure and friction. The high-strength rubber material and special structural design of airless solid tires enable them to handle these challenges with ease, significantly reducing equipment maintenance time and costs related to tire issues and improving the efficiency and stability of industrial production.

At ports, large gantry cranes lift and move numerous containers daily, and their tires must bear immense weight. Airless solid tires operate stably under such high-load conditions, providing strong support for the efficient operation of ports.

With the rapid development of Industry 4.0 and smart manufacturing, AGV (Automated Guided Vehicle) robots are widely used in smart factories. AGV robots need to operate 24/7 without interruption in complex factory environments, requiring extremely high stability and durability from their drive wheels.

The drive wheels of AGV robots, made of solid rubber, not only have excellent wear resistance but also eliminate concerns about tire pressure due to their airless design. This ensures the robots operate stably and accurately, meeting the needs of smart factories for efficient logistics and automated production.

In electronic manufacturing plants, AGV robots are responsible for material handling and distribution. Equipped with airless solid tire drive wheels, they run more stably, reducing production disruptions caused by tire failures and improving the overall efficiency of production lines—providing reliable support for the smooth advancement of smart manufacturing.

Airless solid tires also bring great convenience to cycling enthusiasts for daily travel. Airless solid tires for bicycles are durable and easy to maintain; they handle both smooth urban roads and rough rural paths with ease.

You no longer have to worry about being stranded in an awkward situation due to a flat tire during a ride, nor do you need to spend time and effort on tire maintenance. This makes cycling more relaxed and enjoyable.

As rubber material technology advances, the shortcomings of airless solid tires—such as limitations in lightweight design and shock absorption—will be gradually improved. Pexxon Rubber, a rubber product supplier with over 20 years of experience in rubber production and R&D, fully leverages the wear resistance and aging resistance of rubber, continuously expanding and innovating in the field of solid tires, and has successfully served many vehicle manufacturers of various types.

In future smart factories, automated equipment will have increasingly high demands for tire reliability and durability, and airless solid tires are expected to become a standard configuration, helping smart manufacturing reach new heights. In daily life, airless solid tires may also be applied to more types of vehicles, bringing greater convenience and safety to people's travel.