In November 2023 Galileo Wheel attended Agritechnica – the World's leading trade fair for agricultural machinery. Our team presented the latest products with CupWheel technology: AgriCup tyres for tractors, airless IrriCup and SkidCup – tires for center pivot irrigation and skid steer loaders.
Galileo Wheel's marketing team spoke with Italian tyre industry publication Pneusnews about CupWheel's innovative products. The original article in Italian is available on the Pneusnews website. And we have cited the most interesting fragments of this material in our article.
One of the displayed Galileo CupWheel products on Agritechnica was Galileo IrriCup – tires for center pivot irrigation systems. Armin Schon, CEO of Galileo Wheel, described it as a VF tyre but one that contains absolutely no air:
This means that all the necessary flexibility is present in the sidewall construction and the tire can go over stones and other obstacles without any problems. In addition, the user does not need to stop to adjust the air pressure when conditions change.
The wider footprint of IrriCup also provides 30% more surface contact, which reduces soil compaction in the field.
Not all Galileo tires are airless. Galileo AgriCup tractor tyres were displayed in the large 710/70R38 and 600/65R28 sizes. Armin Schon describes it as "tires, but with minimal pressure".
Galileo Wheel's product information recommends an operating pressure of 1.2 bar for these tires, but Schon says they can work at pressures as low as 0.4 bar.
They can work with the same pressure in the field and on the road. Unlike VFs, you don't have to stop to adjust the air pressure. The lateral stability comes from the construction and not the air pressure.
Galileo AgriCup's sidewall durability allows the tire to have a large footprint that provides supreme flotation, even load distribution with reduced soil compaction and zero downtime.
AgriCup - tractor tires with CupWheel technology
Produced in Israel and India
Airless tires are produced for Galileo in the factory in India. And the Alliance factory in Israel, owned by Yokohama Off Highway Tires, produces the tractor tires. Tractor tyre can be mounted on standard rims, while irrigation and skid steer loader tires require special rims. Therefore, irrigation tires and skid steer tires are delivered to customers full assembly.
Dr. Schon confirms that almost all CupWheel tires on the market today are sold under the Galileo brand. A single PneuTrac product is manufactured under license: it is a small tire intended for mounting on tractors used in wine applications. Following the acquisition of Mitas in 2016, PneuTrac was sold under the Trelleborg brand.
No compromises
The invention of CupWheel began with Avishay Novoplanski identifying a limitation related to tires: the air they need must be somehow contained, and when tire developers try to give flexibility to this "container" in a certain direction, it will also become flexible in other undesirable directions. "For tyres, this means that vertical suspension comes at the expense of lateral stability", he clarified.
Using a paper coffee cup to demonstrate how CupWheel works, Novoplanski crushed the edge of the cup until it was no longer perfectly round. He pointed out that when crushed and rolled, the edge resembles a caterpillar, but possesses a flexibility that does not affect the rigidity of the shape in another direction. "If it were a wheel, I could use air pressure to make it as flexible or rigid as I wish, while still maintaining rigidity in the opposite direction".
Avishay Novoplanski, CTO & Co-founder about CupWheel on Farm Progress Show, 2019
As Avishay Novoplanski later showed us, the design of the CupWheel resembles two inverted cups. This configuration creates a V-shaped sidewall that provides good lateral stability and handling with minimal air pressure. At the same time, CupWheel's tread extends to create a longer footprint, not unlike a caterpillar, while maintaining an even pressure distribution like a radial tyre.
"You can have something that is similar to a track on wheels," added the co-founder and CTO of Galileo Wheel.
It's like a track, very flexible vertically, but laterally you have the same stiffness. The basic principle is that we break the correlation between lateral and vertical stability. There is no compromise anymore.
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