SBIR Phase II: The Reinvention Of The Wheel. For Agricultural Uses and Beyond.

这个SBIR二期项目将探索与传统圆形轮相比，正弦波形轮对中央枢纽灌溉行业的潜在好处。中央枢纽灌溉产业是农业产业的重要组成部分，该项目旨在提供一种优质的轮式灌溉系统，解决挖沟过程中导致设备故障、停机、利润损失和作物损失的问题。从更广泛的意义上说，取消挖沟作业将为农民、分销商和消费者节省大量资金。农业是世界上最大的产业，开发一种轮子，消除困扰这个行业的问题是这个项目的中心目标。正弦波轮的发展也可能影响其他领域，因为这项技术可以在一百多个不同的行业中使用。这个项目的技术创新是创造一个非圆形的轮子。车轮将在一个设计中展示多种形状的融合，包括正弦波，立方体，圆形和六边形。它将大约4.5英尺高，重约400磅，用于农业。这个概念是创造两个轮子串联，其中正弦波是从另一个非相位。前轮会在土壤中形成一条左右左右的路径，就像蛇穿过土壤时留下的路径一样。后轮将以相反的右-左-右配置移动，在尾迹中留下双螺旋足迹。相反的轮子将把土壤推向中心，消除了困扰该行业的最大问题：挖沟。在滑板行业中，正弦波轮技术在减少摩擦、延长使用寿命、增加越野能力和提高速度方面已经在较小规模上得到了科学证明。在这个项目中，将使用工业和橡胶轮胎中现成的轮毂制造多个车轮迭代并随后进行测试。轮子不是气动的，永远不会变平。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This SBIR Phase II project will explore the potential benefits of a sine wave shaped wheel compared to a traditional circular wheel for the central pivot irrigation industry. The central pivot irrigation industry is an essential segment of the agriculture industry and this project aims to deliver a superior wheel that solves the persistent issue of trench-digging that leads to equipment breakdown, down time, lost profits, and crop-loss. The broader significance of eliminating trench-digging would be significant savings for farmers, distributors and consumers. Agriculture is the largest industry in the world, and developing a wheel that eliminates an issue that plagues the industry is the central goal of this project. The development of a sine wave wheel also potentially impacts other fields as the technology can be used in over one-hundred different industries. The technical innovation of this project is creating a wheel that is non-circular. The wheel will exhibit the blending of multiple shapes in one design including a sine wave, cube, circle and hexagon. It will be approximately 4.5 feet tall, and weighing approximately 400lbs for use in the farming industry. The concept is to create two wheels in tandem where the sine waves are out-of-phase from one another. The front wheel would create a left-right-left path into the soil, much like the path a snake would leave behind traversing soil. The rear wheel would move in an opposite right-left-right configuration leaving a double helix footprint in its wake. The opposing wheels would push the soil back toward center, eliminating the largest issue plaguing the industry: trench digging. The sine wave wheel technology has already been scientifically proven on a smaller scale in the skateboarding industry to reduce friction, increase longevity, increase off-road ability, and increase speed. Multiple wheel iterations will be manufactured and subsequently tested in this project using off-the-shelf hubs within the industry and rubber tires. The wheel will not be pneumatic and will never go flat.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.