Hexagonal Crown Block Tread for Heavy-Duty Tire Wear Control
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Solution Overview
Problem
Heavy duty tires used in vehicles like garbage trucks experience uneven wear due to repeated sudden starts and stops under heavy loads.
Innovation Solution
The tire features a tread portion with circumferentially continuous circumferential grooves, dividing it into land portions. The shoulder land portions have a specific axial width, while the crown land portions are divided by crown shallow grooves into crown blocks with hexagonal ground contacting surfaces.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Strength
If the tire is used for heavy duty vehicles with repeated sudden starts and stops under large tire loads, then the tire can handle heavy loading conditions, but uneven wear occurs on the tread portions
Solution Approach 1:
The tread portion is divided into multiple land portions by circumferential grooves, and each crown land portion is further divided into crown blocks by crown shallow grooves. This segmentation distributes the load and wear across multiple contact patches, preventing concentrated wear in single areas while maintaining heavy load bearing capacity.
Solution Approach 2:
Different regions of the tread are designed with different characteristics: shoulder land portions have specific width ratios (17-28% of tread width) for edge stability, while crown land portions are divided into hexagonal crown blocks with specific dimension ratios for uniform wear distribution. The groove depths are also differentiated, with crown shallow grooves having smaller depth than crown circumferential groove, creating localized functional zones that address different wear patterns.
2Reliability
If the crown land portions are divided into crown blocks with specific dimensional ratios, then uneven wear resistance is improved, but the tread pattern complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
Crown land portions are segmented into multiple crown blocks by crown shallow grooves, creating a modular tread pattern. This segmentation achieves uniform wear distribution while maintaining a systematic and manufacturable pattern structure, rather than using irregular complex designs.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention specifies particular parameter ranges for the crown blocks (maximum dimension in circumferential direction being 100-200% of maximum dimension in axial direction, hexagonal shape with continuously increased width from ends toward center) to optimize wear resistance. These controlled parameter variations achieve the desired performance without requiring overly complex geometric forms.
Data Source
AI summary
A heavy duty tire comprises a tread portion having circumferential grooves and land portions. The circumferential grooves include two shoulder circumferential grooves and a crown circumferential groove. The land portions include two of shoulder land portions and two crown land portions. The width W3 of the shoulder land portion is 17% to 28% of the tread width TW. The crown land portion is divided by crown shallow groove into crown blocks. The groove depth of the crown shallow groove is smaller than the groove depth of the crown circumferential groove. The groove bottom of the crown shallow groove is provided with a groove bottom sipe. The ground contacting top surface of the crown block is hexagonal, and the maximum circumferential dimension is 100% to 200% of the maximum axial dimension.