Nowadays, with the rapid development of transportation and logistics industry, the number of freight transport continues to increase, and various measures to reduce self weight, fuel saving and consumption reduction are emerging in endlessly, which has been sought after by many car enterprises and car owners. However, there is an example; Large single tire, which is lighter and more fuel efficient than traditional twin tires, has not been popularized on trailers. What is the reason?

Large single tire generally refers to the super wide tire with a section width of 425mm and 445mm, which can replace two 12R22.5 or 295/80R22.5 standard tires. In this way, only one tire needs to be installed on each side of the axle. Take the three axle semi-trailer as an example. There were 12 tires originally, but only 6 tires were replaced by large single tires, half of the original.

According to relevant calculations, the weight of a large single tire can be about 22% lighter than that of an ordinary twin tire. In addition, the contact area between a large single tire and the road is also smaller than that of an ordinary twin tire, which is about 28% smaller. If a low rolling resistance tire is matched, the rolling resistance can be reduced by about 20%. Therefore, there are obvious advantages in fuel saving.

Although from these aspects, large single tire does save money and fuel, there are other problems in practical application, which is also the reason why large single tire has not been popularized:

1. The price is high. The high price of large single tire is not due to immature production technology. At present, only a part of high-end aluminum alloy trailers in China are equipped with large single tires as standard, and some brands also directly choose imported large single tires, which leads to low market demand for domestic large single tires. Therefore, many rim and tire enterprises are unwilling to invest too much productivity to manufacture large single tires. Thinning is more expensive. Compared with ordinary tires, the price of large single tires will naturally be higher.

2. The maintenance is difficult. In terms of the weight of a single tire, if the weight of a large single tire generally exceeds 130kg, it is difficult for the vehicle owner to complete the replacement alone, so the maintenance convenience is not as good as that of an ordinary twin tire. In addition, the interchangeability of large single tires is poor. The tires of front wheels and rear wheels cannot be interchanged, so special tires must be used. However, many repair shops do not always have large single tires. If there is no inventory, the tires cannot be replaced. Owners can only find a special repair shop.

3. Not suitable for walking down the road. Compared with high-speed, the next road condition is more complex. Once the tires have a problem, you can drive to the maintenance station with the help of another tire. I'm afraid the single tire will be scrapped. Let alone drive slowly, it's a big test to stop the car smoothly when the tires have a problem.

4. The road surface contact area is small. Although this feature can make the large single tire more fuel efficient and energy saving, it can also reduce the friction between the tire and the road to a certain extent. Especially when encountering rain and snow roads, the tire is prone to slip and spin or lock and slip, which has a negative impact on driving and braking.

5. High requirements for axle matching. Some car owners think that replacing a large single tire is just a matter of replacing the tire, which is actually not so simple. We all know that the track width is an important parameter of the vehicle's handling and stability performance. If large single tires are directly installed on the ordinary twin axle, it is very easy to cause the vehicle's track width to be abnormal, such as 10-20 cm indentation. This difference that can be clearly perceived by the naked eye will greatly affect the vehicle's stability. Therefore, if you want to change to large single tire, you must use the axle housing, tire mounting surface, force bearing point and other fully matched axles. For example, Shandong Darong's axle specially built for large single tire trailers has updated the wheel end structure and force bearing design. Square beam, leaf spring suspension, air suspension and other outward extensions have fully guaranteed the vehicle's anti roll ability.

To sum up, the main advantages of large single tire are dead weight and fuel saving. Although there are many problems in actual application, it has affected the user's experience to some extent. However, it is meaningless to talk about performance without considering the application scenario. If the use scenario can be fully matched, the large single tire can also play a good economic performance. For example, under the standard load operation condition of long-distance high-speed, the operation effect of the large single tire is relatively good, which can provide users with considerable economic value.