Nitrogen tires

[user removed]

So you're WELDING on a wheel with 90 PSI of pressure in the tire!

I remember a trade publication article about a service station operator, think it was in Texas, who was plugging a steel belted radial that had been filled repeatedly with a fix a flat type aerosol. The propellants in the aerosol were combustible. When the station owner pushed the file like rasp to open up the puncture hole, for the plug, a spark inside the tire ignited the mixture.

$40,000 in damage to the station and the gent "fixing" the tire settled for something like $960,000 in court. The side of his head after mulitple surgeries was still caved in like some of the vets who were hit with IEDs.

This demonstration reminds me of the Chevy truck fuel tank explosions that were later found to be triggered intentionally.

regards
Mech

[CFECO]

Instead of Nitrogen, what if we filled the tires with helium? The vehicle would be lighter, less rotating mass, sounds like a win-win!

[oil pan 4]

Helium is too expensive, around $2 cubic foot.
That is why I have helium and have not tested it in a tire.

[RedDevil]

Also helium is very volatile; the small atom size means it finds a way through the tiniest of pores, even more so than hydrogen which forms molecules of atom pairs. You'd need to check the pressure much more often.
Helium would be lighter but that would just be one or two ounces per tire.

[user removed]

Helium is volatile? I thought it was an inert gas, actually puts out fires.

regards
Mech

[oil pan 4]

Helium is a fast gas, it conducts heat 6 times faster than air.
I have no interest in its mass.

[CFECO]

Helium is lighter than air, but would also leak out through normal rubber tires, so this was a "practical joke" as to reality....at this time. I had a BFG 40 series TA which had a "Serious" sidewall issue about 45 years ago, which I "Repaired " with one one those tubeless tire repair kits. It consisted of 3 cords of the patch, in a 1/2 inch hole in the side wall of a BFG Radial TA . It lasted over 40 mies, wen I got out and held the lighter to see where the leak was,( It's ALWAYS at night) , I had about a two foot flame directly out of the 1/2 inch hole, drat! A few year in the HVAC business told me to just put my hand over the hole...flameout, 3 more plugs and 125 miles later, were home. Tire air in a can "IS" flammable!

[RedDevil]

Originally Posted by Old Tele man

I believe he was meaning: volatile as "active," not as "combustable."

First listed translation of volatile on Wiktionary is evaporating or vaporizing rapidly under normal conditions.
Strictly speaking this is incorrect as it is already a gas, but I found no better word to describe the Houdini-like properties of helium gas.

The helium filled balloons my kids take home are empty within 2 days. If I untie the knot and blow them up again with air those same balloons stay inflated for months.
There is no tire sealant in my breath...

[CapriRacer]

And I'm going to try to answer the other question: Does the use of helium change any interesting tire characteristics?

I think the answer is "No!" Whatever the inflation medium is (short of something corrosive to rubber), it would have little effect in the way a tire operates. The only thing that might have an effect is thermal conductivity - and for an inflation medium, conducting heat away from the tire and into the rest of the air chamber is a fraction of the heat loss, and likely wouldn't have a large affect on the overall heat loss.

[oil pan 4]

Originally Posted by RedDevil

Strictly speaking this is incorrect as it is already a gas, but I found no better word to describe the Houdini-like properties of helium gas.

Super fluid, even when in gasous phase its still pretty weird acting, but not as weird as when in liquid phase.