Nitrogen Filled Tires

[stugray]

Originally Posted by Ultramaroon

Awww, damn it, Stu. I was just d!cking around. Now I'm going to have to pull out my thermo text. I hear what you're saying but I feel like there's something being overlooked.

It occurred to me while I was thinking about what happens with water in the tire.
As the tire reaches 100C, the temps would stabilize at 100 until all of the water is converted to vapor even as more heat is added.
Once all the water boils off the temps will start to rise again.

So water in the tire is actually a good thing for racing, but likely drives pit crews crazy trying to get consistent tire temps.
(I am one of them as I have taken thousands of tire temp measurements with my clip-board & tire probes :-)
Differing amounts of water would give you varying results on a day-by-day or race-by-race comparison.

And actually since water vapor is a better themal conductor than dry-air/nitrogen, the heat from the tires would move to the wheel more efficiently than just dry air or nitrogen both by convection and conduction.

[gramicci101]

Originally Posted by stugray

It occurred to me while I was thinking about what happens with water in the tire.
As the tire reaches 100C, the temps would stabilize at 100 until all of the water is converted to vapor even as more heat is added.
Once all the water boils off the temps will start to rise again.

So water in the tire is actually a good thing for racing, but likely drives pit crews crazy trying to get consistent tire temps.
(I am one of them as I have taken thousands of tire temp measurements with my clip-board & tire probes :-)
Differing amounts of water would give you varying results on a day-by-day or race-by-race comparison.

And actually since water vapor is a better themal conductor than dry-air/nitrogen, the heat from the tires would move to the wheel more efficiently than just dry air or nitrogen both by convection and conduction.

So are you looking at a little water/coolant/fluid that acts as a stabilizer around that fluid's boiling temp, or are you looking at a tire completely full of fluid X?


Either way, the gaseous state and the liquid state would need to take up the same amount of volume in order to maintain pressure, right? If the fluid converts to gas and tries to take up more space, pressure will rise just from that.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by gramicci101

So are you looking at a little water/coolant/fluid that acts as a stabilizer around that fluid's boiling temp, or are you looking at a tire completely full of fluid X?


Either way, the gaseous state and the liquid state would need to take up the same amount of volume in order to maintain pressure, right? If the fluid converts to gas and tries to take up more space, pressure will rise just from that.

And what about added weight?
If only looking at a small volume of liquid probably not a factor but anything in any quantity is adding some weight.
We had several military vehicles that had glycol filled tires to provide traction and balance and those puppies were heavy!

[Scenic Driver]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

Just put my winter air in as the summer stuff just wasn't cutting it anymore!

That's important, winter tires don't work properly unless they are filled with winter air.

[gramicci101]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

And what about added weight?
If only looking at a small volume of liquid probably not a factor but anything in any quantity is adding some weight.
We had several military vehicles that had glycol filled tires to provide traction and balance and those puppies were heavy!

Plus, liquids like water aren't known for being especially compressible, so the ride would suffer since you no longer have the tire absorbing impact.

Originally Posted by Scenic Driver

That's important, winter tires don't work properly unless they are filled with winter air.

Crisp winter air makes for crisp handling. It's right in the name, so you know it's true.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by Scenic Driver

That's important, winter tires don't work properly unless they are filled with winter air.

Wish I had a dollar for every new Army driver we sent to get the seasonal air changed back in the day! Along with boxes of short circuits, blackout light bulbs and the ever popular sky hook!

[gramicci101]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

Wish I had a dollar for every new Army driver we sent to get the seasonal air changed back in the day! Along with boxes of short circuits, blackout light bulbs and the ever popular sky hook!

And a new fallopian tube, 20 meters of flightline, and a bucket of jet wash to clean the plane. And some K-9P lubricant.


edit: And keys to the jet. And making the new guy do a 365-day rivet check on the horizontal stabilizer. Ah, good times...

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by gramicci101

And a new fallopian tube, 20 meters of flightline, and a bucket of jet wash to clean the plane. And some K-9P lubricant.

AHHHH The Air Force has so much more to work with!

[Ultramaroon]

Originally Posted by stugray

It occurred to me while I was thinking about what happens with water in the tire.
As the tire reaches 100C, the temps would stabilize at 100 until all of the water is converted to vapor even as more heat is added.
Once all the water boils off the temps will start to rise again.

Except that it's a closed system like a water heater. Pressure increases along with boiling point until BOOM.

[BRZ21]

Originally Posted by stugray

You must not work around auto paint much. They ALL have air dryers on the compressors.

I will rephrase:

"There is no difference between using dry air versus Nitrogen to fill your tires. Anyone who says otherwise is wrong"



Actually this discussion made me think about it a lot.

IF you could find a phase change liquid that evaporates right at the final target temp of the tires at race temps, then you could have MORE STABLE temps than anyone experiences right now.
The liquid would work as a tire balancer (like the little beads that some use) and would evaporate to keep the tire temps stable.

I have never heard of that before.

We use some interesting liquids at work as cooling fluid.
It evaporates at 70F and leaves NOTHING behind.
I used it in my ultrasonic cleaner to clean some carb parts.
It was cool - pour in fluid, turn on cleaner with heat.
Come back in 20 minutes and parts are clean, dry, and there is now dry-dirt at the bottom of the cleaner. It is similar to dry cleaning fluid.

I actually am around that quite a bit.

I think you're missing my point. My point being, when I go to autocross and my tire pressuresclimb 6psi in a few minutes, then I drive home and have to put air back in them because they fall back below 30 (or whatever it is) and trigger the tpms code, this could all be avoided with nitrogen.

I feel like I'm coming off as a huge advocate for nitrogen filled tires and I'mnot. Just making statements.

[BRZ21]

Originally Posted by stugray

You must not work around auto paint much. They ALL have air dryers on the compressors.

I will rephrase:

"There is no difference between using dry air versus Nitrogen to fill your tires. Anyone who says otherwise is wrong"



Actually this discussion made me think about it a lot.

IF you could find a phase change liquid that evaporates right at the final target temp of the tires at race temps, then you could have MORE STABLE temps than anyone experiences right now.
The liquid would work as a tire balancer (like the little beads that some use) and would evaporate to keep the tire temps stable.

I have never heard of that before.

We use some interesting liquids at work as cooling fluid.
It evaporates at 70F and leaves NOTHING behind.
I used it in my ultrasonic cleaner to clean some carb parts.
It was cool - pour in fluid, turn on cleaner with heat.
Come back in 20 minutes and parts are clean, dry, and there is now dry-dirt at the bottom of the cleaner. It is similar to dry cleaning fluid.

I actually am around that quite a bit.

I think you're missing my point. My point being, when I go to autocross and my tire pressuresclimb 6psi in a few minutes, then I drive home and have to put air back in them because they fall back below 30 (or whatever it is) and trigger the tpms code, this could all be avoided with nitrogen.

I feel like I'm coming off as a huge advocate for nitrogen filled tires and I'mnot. Just making statements.


Edit: you're other points are interesting

[SocalBurt]

Lots of opinions on the subject but good input. So I got them to do all my tires for free. After about a week on stock suspension, wheels, and tires i pretty much see zero difference. Initially they wanted $9 per tire but my savy eye spotted an old coupon from them stating "free nitrogen tire fill up" Some old promotion they had but hey the coupon was still good.

[PunX]

I would put some scientific explanation here as well because i was very skeptic about this subject as many say it's useless and did some deep research to find out what is really up with this thing and when/where is it good for. This is what i found out and how i explained it for myself.
How Nitrogen differs from air(consisting of 73% of nitrogen) - Air has Hydrogen in it, in low quantity though, but still.
Now the big difference comes into play in moist and/or hot climate, as condensation water accumulates in compression tanks, it does so in your tires as well. In extreme cases tire techs have even found bucket of water in a tire used for 4 years after taking off from a rim(figuratively speaking).
This water or moisture(depending how long and much there are in your tire) is the main concern, this is what makes tires heat up more slowly, unevenly, change pressure big time with temp changes or even unbalance your tire going sub zero temps(READ: minus temps in C).
So you will have biggest benefits using Nitrogen in your tires when you live in England, where it rains every other day
And least benefit in eg Egypt or somewhere in middle of desert on a sunny dry day.
gains from nitrogen
*even and very fast warm up for tires
*even wear
*more stable pressure through out very big ambient temp changes(example from +30C to -20C)
*and debatable but possible, scientist say that because of Nitrogen molecule being bigger, it doesn't escape the tire from microscopical holes in rubber form so fast than Oxygen does.

[Malt]

Originally Posted by PunX

I would put some scientific explanation here as well because i was very skeptic about this subject as many say it's useless and did some deep research to find out what is really up with this thing and when/where is it good for. This is what i found out and how i explained it for myself.
How Nitrogen differs from air(consisting of 73% of nitrogen) - Air has Hydrogen in it, in low quantity though, but still.
Now the big difference comes into play in moist and/or hot climate, as condensation water accumulates in compression tanks, it does so in your tires as well. In extreme cases tire techs have even found bucket of water in a tire used for 4 years after taking off from a rim(figuratively speaking).
This water or moisture(depending how long and much there are in your tire) is the main concern, this is what makes tires heat up more slowly, unevenly, change pressure big time with temp changes or even unbalance your tire going sub zero temps(READ: minus temps in C).
So you will have biggest benefits using Nitrogen in your tires when you live in England, where it rains every other day
And least benefit in eg Egypt or somewhere in middle of desert on a sunny dry day.
gains from nitrogen
*even and very fast warm up for tires
*even wear
*more stable pressure through out very big ambient temp changes(example from +30C to -20C)
*and debatable but possible, scientist say that because of Nitrogen molecule being bigger, it doesn't escape the tire from microscopical holes in rubber form so fast than Oxygen does.

You do realize that all of this is complete nonsense, used as pseudoscience to market nitrogen filled tires. Not sure what your point of hydrogen being in the air is, but the amount of free hydrogen not bonded to water in the atmosphere is so minuscule its a non-issue. Tire warmup would be the exact same as atmospheric air. The issue of water in the air is resolved by air driers that are installed on most shop compressors. Having a bucket of water in a tire is silly because you would certainly feel that driving down the road and most peoples tires don't last 4 years to begin with.

Nitrogen fill is snake oil that tire shops use to try and up-sell you to increase profits.