Do they fill airplane tires with nitrogen?

Do they fill airplane tires with nitrogen? : Aircraft tires are filled with nitrogen because nitrogen gas is mostly inert, meaning that it requires more energy to react with other substances. This is important because at elevated temperatures, oxygen can react with rubber. Oxidized rubber is weaker than non-oxidized rubber, and weaker tires are not preferred.

Oxygen diffuses through rubber much faster than nitrogen. This means that tires filled with 95% nitrogen (the standard percentage of nitrogen gas for inflation purposes) will maintain pressure longer. This leads to less maintenance, which lowers costs.

Do they fill airplane tires with nitrogen?

Tires operating with correct pressure are less prone to premature wear. Less wear means less tires (lower operating costs) and less heat generation during ground operations. Higher tire temperatures increase the risk of tire tread delamination or blowout. Apart from the safety concerns (which really aren’t that bad, blowouts happen quite frequently), tire fragments can cause damage to the aircraft structure, get sucked into the engine, and almost definitely cause undo stress on the landing gear due to uneven loading. Loss of a tire can even cause excess loading on the other tires of the landing gear (meaning just the nose gear, or one of the main gear) and require the other tires to be replaced regardless of condition.

Courtesy : Quora / Author : Rob DeCosta