Análisis del comportamiento del aire y del nitrógeno en neumáticos, y su incidencia en el desgaste por el cambio térmico al que están expuestos

Abstract

This project aims to analyze the behavior of the air and the nitrogen in tires and its impact on wear due to the thermal change they are exposed by using the Tire Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS); installed in the valve of the tires of the vehicle. First, a bibliographic review was developed on the physical-chemical behavior of air and nitrogen used in tire inflation. A vehicle of the brand Kia Rio 2018 model sedan (taxi) was used in the study. For which two of its tires were inflated with air and the other two with nitrogen. Pressure and temperature data were acquired with the sensor TPMS. In addition, tire wear was measured manually using a caliper. The data was collected in an Excel sheet to later be tabulated and facilitate handling for its analysis. A comparison was made between the data from tire temperature, determining that tires inflated with nitrogen reached a lower temperature than tires inflated with air. Considering that the tests were carried out in different climatic conditions. Where the temperature of the road directly influences the temperature of the tires, it was determined that the Nitrogen-inflated tires maintain inflation pressure longer than tires inflated with air. Statistical analysis was performed applying the Student's t-distribution in which it was shown that tires inflated with air have an average wear of the tread of 0.89 mm per 2021 km, whereas tires inflated with Nitrogen had an average wear of 0.71mm for the same mileage. After the analysis of temperature, pressure and wear, it was verified that nitrogen grants greater performance than air for tire inflation. Consequently, it generates a longer lifetime.