In article <[email hidden]>,
Tim McNamara said:In article <[email hidden]>,
(Luns Tee) said:I'll start with saying that it's still not entirely clear to me how
the clinch works.As I said in the other thread, to me it looks like an interference fit
comprised of the hook at the edge of the rim with the bead of the tire
below it. The inner tube fills the space like a fluid, pressing the
tire against the rim wall and securing the clinch. The inelastic bead
inside the edge of the tire if important as it would resist the tendency
of the inner tube to push the tire away from the rim bed by preventing
the edge of the tire casing from stretching.
What's unclear to me is what keeps the bead from just sliding out
of the space under the rim hook: it's seems to me somewhat like tying
a knot in end of a rope and trying to use that bump in the rope as a
grappling hook. Air pressure pressing the tire against the rim wall
doesn't help except for pressure right at the bead, a strip of only a
millimetre or two high. It's like pressing on the knotted string:
pushing it against the wall doesn't help, but pushing it at the knot
when it wants to otherwise slide off the corner it's snagged on, does.
Perhaps that mm wide strip is important to this picture - I'd
dismissed it before given how thin it is, but it's worth considering.
The force on that strip would be proportional to air pressure, so if
we increase air pressure, but keep casing tension constant (by going
to a narrower tire as we increase pressure), the tire should be more
resistant to blowoff.
Thank you for bringing this to light, Tim. I take back what I'd
said earlier about tire width not mattering if casing tension is kept
constant: this does suggest that narrow tires would be more resistant to
blowoffs.
Quoted message said:A while back, the folks at Rivendell tried cutting the beads and
inflating the tires. I don't have the article in front of me, but the
tires were retained on the rim to surprisingly high pressures IIRC, but
eventually blew off the rim, tearing the casing at one or more of the
cuts. That suggests to me that the interference fit at the clinch is
very effective, and that at higher pressures the inelasticity of the
bead wire becomes more important.
Jobst and Damon Rinard have mentioned that experiment too, and
it does show the clinch is quite effective. But given that blowoffs
still occur, there's still room to improve.
-Luns