Following two years of intensive R&D working closely with the National Composites Centre (NCC) in Bristol, Dymag has been granted a full UK patent No:2541498 and with PCT coverage in over 140 countries for its ground-breaking BOXSTROM® carbon composite wheel design.
The BOXSTROM® barrel is designed to meet and surpass the highest levels of testing demanded by leading performance and luxury automotive OEMs with a particular focus on performance, safety and durability. It achieves these requirements via a number of unique design and technical features that are now fully patent protected.
Specifically the carbon composite BOXSTROM® barrel moves the key load bearing structure of the wheel away from areas that are most exposed to impact damage from kerbs, and driving over hard objects or significant potholes. Importantly the design also substantially improves overall wheel stiffness.
The BOXSTROM® carbon composite barrel is typically teamed with a bespoke high specification forged aluminium centrepiece. The result is a carbon composite hybrid auto wheel that melds the benefits of cutting edge carbon composite performance with the flexibility of styling and stiffness offered by forged aluminium.
This is even more important as wheels continually get bigger: the low weight of the carbon barrel also significantly reduces the MOI (moment of inertia) reducing the energy to accelerate and brake the large rotating wheel while maintaining high lateral stiffness of total hybrid wheel systems.
Commenting on the newly granted patent, Dymag’s CEO Chris Shelley said:
“Gaining a full patent is clearly excellent news for our business, but it is also very good news for the wider global automotive industry; both OEM’s and aftermarket, as our BOXSTROM® design is effectively unlocking the huge benefits of carbon composites to automotive wheels.
“We wish we could disclose all the details of the exciting projects we are working on in addition to those such as Fisker EMotion EV, BAC Mono and Ariel, but the technology is so cutting edge that many marques are keeping developments under wraps.
“We have several world leading tier 1 OEM wheel manufacturers and aftermarket wheel brands in the USA, Europe (particularly Germany) and Japan developing aftermarket offerings that will feature our patented BOXSTROM® barrel with their styled centrepieces.”