French tyre maker, Michelin, recently opened its newest plant in North America, which will produce the innovative Michelin X Tweel Airless Radial Tire for commercial applications.
The new 135,000 sq ft facility in Piedmont, represents Michelin’s 10th manufacturing facility in South Carolina, and the 16th in the US. The company says that it is investing about US$50 million in the new plant.
Michelin’s US research engineers conceived the idea on the Tweel, a revolutionary non-pneumatic tyre that changed the configuration of a conventional tyre, bringing together the tyre and the wheel assembly into one solid unit. The Tweel comprises a rigid hub connected to a shear beam by means of flexible, deformable polyurethane spokes, all functioning as a single unit.
Unlike conventional tyres, the Tweel has no air, thereby eliminates having flat tyres that would inconvenience the landscape, construction, contracting, refuse/recycling and agricultural industries.
The new plant is expected to boost Michelin’s output of the X Tweel SSL skid-steer tyres; it will also begin production of the new X Tweel Turf as original equipment for John Deere, a US engine manufacturer for heavy and lawn care equipment, to equip its Ztrak 900 Series line-up of zero-turn commercial mowers.