Improvements in Pneumatic Tires.
Year: 1897

page_text: Date of Application, 5th Jan., 1897-Accepted, 13th Mar., 1897
Improvements in Pneumatic Tires.
I, EDWARD LYON, of No. 64 Elm Street, New Rochelle, in the County of
Westchester, and State of New York, United States of America, Insurance Inspector,
do hereby declare the nature of this invention and in what manner the same is to
be performed to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following
statement:-
As ordinarily constructed, pneumatic tires for vehicles of various descriptions are
composed of one or more layers or plies of rubber and one or more layers or plies of
a material such as a heavy cotton fabric, which is comparatively inextensible, although
sufficiently flexible to adapt it to the requirements of its use, and to some extent
resists puncture. Nevertheless, as is well known, pneumatic tires so constructed are
easily punctured. Various attempts have been made, it is true, to employ in the
manufacture of the tires some material which would resist puncture much more than
the cotton fabric usually employed, and for this purpose it has been proposed to use
thin sheets of metal, or sheets of celluloid, or sheets of leather, or sheets of raw hide,
or other puncture-resisting material in sheets; tires so constructed do undoubtedly
resist puncture but they are practically useless for the purpose intended because any
material which is sufficiently hard to resist puncture, will, if employed in a continuous
sheet, be lacking in the qualities of flexibility and resilience and in the capacity to
adapt itself to different forms, in the degrees required for a practically successful and
commercially available pneumatic tire. Having in mind the defects of the tires
hitherto devised, I have sought to devise a structure which shall combine the desirable
qualities possessed by a practically impenetrable material with the other desirable
qualities possessed by the textile fabric bitherto commonly employed. Accordingly I
provide the tire with a layer or ply of a fabric composed of independent strips of
rawhide. The preferred mode of practising the invention and other features of the
invention will be fully described and set forth hereinafter with reference to the
accompanying drawing in which,-
Figure 1 is a view in perspective of a portion of a pneumatic tire which embodies
my invention, a portion of the outer covering or layer being removed to show the
preferred construction more clearly, and a portion of the wheel to which the tire is
applied being also shown;
Figure 2 is a detail view, somewhat exaggerated, showing clearly the preferred
manner of forming the protective fabric.
I prefer to construct the improved tire with an outer layer of rubber A and an
inner layer of rubber B, between which is interposed the novel protective and
puncture-resisting layer of fabric C, the outer and inner layers A and B being
preferably vulcanized together after the completion of the tube and thereby more
closely united with the intermediate layer and to some extent with each other. It
will be obvious, however, as this description proceeds, that the nature of the fabric C
is independent of the particular locality or relative position in which it is used and
that it might be made the external covering of the tire, or that the ordinary
independent air tube might be employed, or that the parts may be arranged in any
desired manner or relation.
As indicated above, the protective layer of fabric C is made up of narrow strips
of rawhide from which the natural oils have been largely extracted, as by
passing the strips between heavy rollers, and the strips are then interwoven,
preferably in the simple manner represented in Figure 2. Thereafter, the fabric so
formed is preferably passed between heavy rollers so that the strips shall be more or

page_text: less embedded in one another where they cross and their edges caused to overlap
slightly thereby preventing the passage of any article between the strips in a line
perpendicular to the plane of the fabric, and, so that the fabric shall be as thin as
possible. The fabric is preferably made or formed as a tube to completely enclose
the rubber tube within it and the strips should be so woven together that they shall
be disposed obliquely with respect to the axis of the tube, as clearly represented in
Figure 1, this arrangement being necessary to secure for the tire the requisite
flexibility; it is obvious, however, that the protective fabric performs its chief
function at or near the tread of the tire, and that therefore it need not be formed
as a tube but may be applied as a strip between or held in position by other parts
of the tire.
Under some conditions it may be desirable to give to the tire a greater degree of
resilience than that which is imparted by the rawhide fabric and in such cases I
introduce into the fabric, preferably with each strip of rawhide, one or more strands c¹
of a suitably tempered wire, a properly tempered wire of aluminum being the
most desirable for the purpose. It will be understood that the strips c, whether with
or without the wires c¹, are brought together as closely as possible so that the
interstices may not be large enough to admit such articles as might penetrate through
the rubber, the wires being in fact embedded in the strips of rawhide by the pressure
to which the fabric is subjected, as aforesaid.
It will be obvious that while the protective layer C will resist puncture practically
to the same degree as a continuous sheet of rawhide, nevertheless, by reason of its
formation of narrow strips which are independent one of the other and are disposed
obliquely with respect to the axis of the tire, it will yield readily to conform to the
inequalities of the surface over which the wheel may pass and also to permit the
tire to be inflated to the proper tension. The subjection of the completed fabric of
rawhide strips, whether with or without the wires, to the pressure of heavy rollers,
causes the rawhide strips to be spread somewhat at their edges so that the contiguous
strips overlap slightly in the manner of scales, whereby it is impossible to cause the
point, even of a tack, to penetrate the fabric in a line perpendicular to the plane of
its surface. The practical impenetrability of the tire thus secured, however, does not
interfere with its flexibility and resilience.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said inven-
tion and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that what
I claim is―
I
1. A pneumatic tíre having a protective layer composed of a fabric woven of strips
of rawhide and strands of wire, substantially as described.
2. In a pneumatic tire, the combination of an inner air tube of rubber and an
· enclosing protective tube composed of strips of rawhide and strands of wire woven
together and disposed obliquely with respect to the axis of the tire, substantially as
.described.
3. A pneumatic tire having a protective layer composed of a fabric woven of
.strips of rawhide, said strips being disposed obliquely with respect to the axis of
the tire, and being more or less embedded in one another where they cross,
and being compressed to close the interstices between the strips, substantially as
described.
4. A pneumatic tire having a protective layer composed of a fabric woven of strips
of rawhide and strands of wire, the strips of rawhide being embedded more or less
within each other where they cross, and the strands of wire being embedded within
the rawhide, substantially as described.
Dated the 5th day of January 1897
PHILIP M. JUSTICE,
Chartered Patent Agent, London,
For the Applicant.