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The shark is a fast swimmer that quietly moves through the water with very little resistance. Over hundreds of millions of years, nature has finetuned the shark and the features of its skin to optimise its performance. This evolution is something quite extraordinary – something to be inspired from.
But what exactly is it that makes the skin of this majestic creature so unique – so extraordinary?
Sharks are covered by numerous small scales creating a rough micro surface. Due to the special design of the scales, the water turbulence is reduced when the water flows over the shark skin. Water drag and energy loss is decreased, enabling the shark to move faster with less effort.
Imagine if we could do the same – and even improve your driving experience at the same time by creating our best tyres for rain.
Bionics has often inspired new tyre developments. What makes this special is how to transfer the shark skin effect to a technical product.
Ulrich Behr, Industrial Design Uniroyal
In general, we all want to maintain tyre contact with the road. Water can break this contact and it does not offer you the same grip as the road does. When driving on water, braking or steering becomes impossible – and aquaplaning occurs.
It has always been our goal to develop our tyres with the best in wet performance and so we have also evaluated new technologies outside the tyre industry to "take it to the next level". Aiming to create reliable wet weather tyres has led us to study bionics – the transfer of phenomena from nature to technology.
Without Shark Skin Technology (SST): Water flow with turbulences due to flat surfaces. Water turbulences are responsible for a higher flow resistance.
With Shark Skin Technology (SST): Thanks to the shark skin structure the water flow is nearly without any turbulences.
To prevent aquaplaning, we looked to bionics and we’ve been able to replicate the effect of shark skin within our tread patterns of the Uniroyal RainSport 5. The result: liquid turbulence is reduced, and water is expelled quickly from beneath the tyre.
This technology means tyres can run across wet roads without losing contact. As the water passes through their wide in-block-grooves at speed, it is efficiently and swiftly scattered. The tyres maintain their hold on the road surface and the risk of aquaplaning is reduced.
We do our very best to be able to make your driving experience even better – so you can focus on all other good things in life. The new RainSport 5 combines the best wet performance in its class, with improved mileage and superior steering control for maximum driving pleasure.
With a stiffer base this tyre truly delivers top cornering stability, great steering response and control for maximum driving pleasure.
