To understand the history of tires and the beginning of their invention or manufacture , It is necessary to understand and know in a simple way the history of 3 things.
1- Wheels
Man knew and invented wheels in ancient times and used them to move things . . The idea came from tree trunks when he saw them rolling, then by cutting them, the shape of a wheel came out, and then came the idea of connecting the wheels to a pole, placing a cart, then attaching it and pulling it with horses or other animals.
These wheels were hard, often broken, and uncomfortable, in addition to being slow and their speed was related to the means of transportation, which was the animals that pulled them.
These wheels were made of wood, and around the wood was a frame made of iron, leather, or wood itself. This remained the case until the discovery or knowledge of rubber, which is the second thing related to tires, emerged .
2- Rubber
When discovering South America, explorers saw the people of the region playing with balls bouncing off the ground. They knew that they made it from a white, sticky liquid that comes out of the hevea tree (a tree that grows in hot places like the Amazon Basin). The people of the region call it the tree of tears, or in their language, “caucha,” and from here the common name for rubber was derived, which is caoutchouc.
Then the seeds of these trees were taken and planted in similar hot regions, such as India, Indonesia, and others, and the rubber material spread.
Despite its spread, the benefit from it was little because the rubber was strongly affected by temperatures and was not stable.
Until 2 scientists came, one of them was American, Charles Goodyear, and the second was British, Thomas Hancock. They used a process called vulcanization.
It is adding sulfur to rubber in a specific form and at specific temperatures. The rubber becomes fixed and does not change.
This discovery or invention of the two occurred in approximately the same years 1839-1844, despite the distance between them. Each one obtained one British and one American patent.
anyway they taken rubber and put it on the outside of the whells frames instead of iron, but it was also hard, and If it is cut, it becomes crooked and toughd when bumping or hitting the ground.
In approximately the same years, in 1946, a Scottish scientist came up with a new idea and invention for which he received a patent, which is to put air between the rubber and the wheel, so that the rubber becomes as if a cushion for the air inside it, thus reducing the impact on the ground and giving comfort when walking. This scientist is Robert Thompson. The bicycle was invented, and it is the third thing related to the history of tires, which is the means of transportation and its change, especially bicycles and then cars.
3- Transportations
Bicycles were invented at the beginning of the 19th century, approximately 1813, although they went through stages before this date, but in their current form they began approximately from this date.
Let us return to Thompson and his invention in 1946, a rubber tire with a pneumatic tube. Despite its success, it did not spread to the public due to the high cost at the time and Thompson’s lack of focus in spreading it. Also, bicycles were not widely spread.
In 1888 AD, the Irish veterinarian John Dunlop repeated the idea previously presented by Thompson. He installed a rubber tire with air inside on his son’s bike, then he did the same thing on the bike of one of the racers in bicycle races and succeeded in winning the race, and from there the idea spread.
1891 The Michelin brothers (French) succeeded in inventing a rubber tire that can be easily removed and replaced from the wheel, unlike Doctor Dunlop’s tire, which is very difficult to repair and remove from the wheels easily.
With the invention and emergence of cars, the idea of rubber tires with air inside them was applied to cars , In 1895, the Michelin brothers installed these tires on the Eclair car. The story of tires began to develop and spread.
This is the story of tires or caoutchouc
