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Exploding Truck Tire

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The Myth

THIS MYTH WAS FEATURED IN...
Exploding Truck TireEpisode 80: Big Rig Myths

ORIGINAL AIR DATE: 6/6/2007
Myth Title: Exploding Truck Tire



Myth Description: Can an exploding big rig tire decapitate a person?


MythBusters on the bust: Adam Savage, Jamie Hyneman

Hypothesis: The velocity & force of a tire been split into rubber & radials (steel threads) can send to fragments at lethal velocity.


Procedure/Experimental Design: After digging a ditch, they a truck into the ditch & cut off the sides to expose the drive-wheel. Next, they place a big rig trailer on a 30,000 pound forklift. This way, the trailer's tire is on top of the truck's tire so that the truck tire can spin the trailer tire. Next, placing Buster on a motorcycle with ShockWatch stickers, they start testing ways of busting tires.

First, they shoot the tire with a deer slug, they realize that they need a more worn-down tire to get it to shred. They reduce the air pressure (PSI) within the tire as well as to place heaters near the tires. Then they shoot 150 PSI into the tire & cause it to burst. Finally, they take that burst tire & spin it around as if it were still being driven. Without conclusive data, they take "tire chunks" & make a tire chunk chucker to conclusively see if those pieces would be lethal.

Placing a ballistics gel head with a pig's spine on the inside of a car door with a glass window. Next, they set up the mock dynamometer rig with a different top wheel to shoot the tire chunk at the gel head.


Results: The glass in the car window shatters. The ballistics head rips off of the spine & the whole setup falls over.


Conclusion: As Jamie said, there's no two ways about it. If you get hit in the head with a 40+ mph tire chunk, you're done.


Busted or Not Busted: Confirmed
Fan Feedback
my dad was hit in the eye with a small pecas of tire when he was passing a truck. he is ok bigfun
Highlights of the bust:






Best quotes by the MythBusters:






Your Scientific Method

Did the MythBusters get it right? How would you have busted this myth differently? Share your experiment design for how you would prove/disprove this myth:

  • Being a trucker, I've seen what type of damage can be caused by a exploding truck tire. From it spider webbing a tailgater's windshield, to it wrapping around the mud flap support and bending it like it was rubber. Under ideal conditions, those things can be lethal, especially to someone on a "Hog", cause a wipe out, hit to the head, etc.. All I know is picking up four foot long piece of rubber off the highway, and they're not light. Well done guys.


  • The main problem with this myth I believe is that as the truck wheels roll along the road, no matter what speed the truck is traveling the same amount of tire tread is in contact with the road and at the point of contact the tyre is stationary. The tire rolls over a point. The wheel is not spinning on the same spot. The only difference is the centrifugal force caused by the speed of rotation. The biggest effect will be with traffic travelling at speed INTO the pieces of rubber which causes the damage, whereas if someone was stationary the pieces will just continue on their path and stop. If a car is travelling at 60mph and a stone is thrown up in front of it, the stone will hit the car at 60mph. If a tire explodes, the pieces will stay at the place they exploded, but the car hitting them will be at speed, it is their speed which causes the damage, not the tire.


  • It's pretty much proven that it's dangerous. I'd happened one time drove next to a big-rig on the highway when its tire fell to pieces. One big piece went under my car and caused me to bump over it like speed bump. It was scary.


  • I have no doubt that exploding truck tires are dangerous, probably deadly. But the test rig they guys built had an issue. It looked like they were using the pickup truck's speedometer to determine the wheel speed. It also looked like the trucks opposite rear wheel was held stationary. The issue is that the vehicle speed sensor is on the output shaft of the transmission which represents the average speed of the two rear wheels. If one wheel is held stationary, the inner workings of the differential will cause the opposite wheel will spin at twice the speed indicated on the speedometer. The rubber they chucked at grant's bust was moving at 80mph, not 40.

  • I may be wrong, but I think that whoever shared the myth, may have only remembered a part of it. I believe what he or she might have been referring to were the cautions given out in High School Driver Ed Courses. In the 1970's and earlier, big rigs used two-piece "Split Rims". Student were warned not to drive next to big rigs because the tires were under high pressure and if punctured, could explode and drive half the rim into traffic. The force was described as powerful enough to do significant damage to anything in it's path. Claims were made that a motorcyclist had actually been decapitated in one of these "Split Rim" Explosions.




See Also

Related myths: ----

Related resources and reference pages: ----




Latest page update: made by RickSimoni , Jun 8 2008, 11:59 PM EDT (about this update About This Update RickSimoni "Split Rim" Explanation for Exploding Tire Myth - RickSimoni

115 words added

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More Info: links to this page

Threads

Anonymous  (Get credit for your thread)
Started By Thread Subject Replies Last Post
LiLMDB66 Expoding tire 0 Sunday, 11:40 AM EDT by LiLMDB66
LiLMDB66
Thread started: Sunday, 11:40 AM EDT  Watch
Ok need help out I came home and found my dodge ram 4X4 2500 with heavy duty tires on it with one flat ok well the tire has a 5 inch straight slice in it on the side wall that goes around to the tread. My Dad tells me he was mowing and a rock shot out of his little lawn mower and blew out the tires LOL ok I also saw where he was driving his tractor by my truck and my son and I say he hit it with the bucket the rim is also scratched all in a perfect straight line right through the tire. So can a rock blow out the side of a tire in a perfect 5 inch slice all the way around to the tread? Help this is starting a huge family fight. By the way the biggest rock that we could find is smaller then a golf ball and smooth.

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