Nitrogen-Filled Tyres

Defcon5 said:
No. Plus are you going to re-fill it with nitrogen when its a bit low?
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Hmm, obviously Nitrogen holds different properties to what conventinal air/oxygen does, just googled to find this...

engineeringtalk.com said:
Most importantly, by using it to reduce the concentration of oxygen in a tyre it possible to equalise the partial pressure between the air inside each tyre and the surrounding atmosphere.

As a result, the common problem of slow deflation caused by oxygen slowly leaking through the tyre wall is virtually eliminated, thereby ensuring that tyres remain at their correct pressures between vehicle servicing.
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/edit - So... Nitrogen has bigger molecules than Air/Oxygen, and therefore is more difficult for it to gradually escape from the tyre...
 
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I wouldn't imagine it would make too much difference. Air is mostly nitrogen anyway.
 
It is useful on your road going car if you are into trackdays.

It prevents the tyre pressure fluctuation (per the tyre's hot and cold cycles).
 
''Most importantly, by using it to reduce the concentration of oxygen in a tyre it possible to equalise the partial pressure between the air inside each tyre and the surrounding atmosphere.''
you cannot get more equal than air (75% Nitrogen) inside the tyre and air outside the tyre
 
merlin said:
It prevents the tyre pressure fluctuation (per the tyre's hot and cold cycles).
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How? It seems to me that both air (about 70% nitrogen, 30ish % oxygen) and pure nitrogen would behave as ideal gasses in this respect and would thusly behave identically for equal molar quantities.
 
BillytheImpaler said:
How? It seems to me that both air (about 70% nitrogen, 30ish % oxygen) and pure nitrogen would behave as ideal gasses in this respect and would thusly behave identically for equal molar quantities.
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Don't ask me - I failed chemistry at school. :p

I have a trackday DVD which says nitrogen can be used to keep your tyre pressures from rocketing (as the air inside heats and expands - they were suggesting nitrogen doesn't).

What do race teams use?
 
Phil W said:
/edit - So... Nitrogen has bigger molecules than Air/Oxygen, and therefore is more difficult for it to gradually escape from the tyre...
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Oxygen is a larger atom by ever-so-slight an amount. The common molecules for each is N2 and O2 respectively. How does N2 end up being larger?

Race teams do use the stuff, but it seems to be surrounded by a lot of hokum and hogwash.
 
air is roughly x amount of this, x amount of that, and an x amounts of x and the mix vaires depending on y

nitrogen is 100% nitrogen and therefore more predictable, that'll be all.
 
I can't see how race team engineers could come to run with something unproven. It's not like it's particularly difficult to test it themselves is it?
 
Nitrogen offers some small benefits on a track car, and virtually none on a road car IMO. If the molecular size/leakage issue were actually significant (and it's not) then after you'd topped up your tyres up a few times you would have mostly nitrogen in them anyway.

Nitrogen and dry air will have virtually identical behaviour regarding pressure vs temperature, i.e. pressure increases proportionally with temperature. Real air has some moisture in it which could depart the temperature/pressure relationship somewhat.
 
gillywibble said:
Surely it's heavier and will slow you down?
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No nitrogen is lighter than oxygen and C02, the other major parts of air.

BillytheImpaler said:
Oxygen is a larger atom by ever-so-slight an amount. The common molecules for each is N2 and O2 respectively. How does N2 end up being larger?
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No nitrogen is the larger atom. Think you are only considering the atomic number but that is not the only factor. Also the van derr waals forces are weaker in a nitrogen molecule i think so the molecule is bigger. Its been a while since i went down to this level of chemistry so i may get corrected here. Also the pressure thing is that nitrogen is inert and so is energized less by the increased temperature associated with cornering etc and so it does not expand as much and hence there is less increase in pressure.
 
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