Mold Recess Design for Tire Closure Flexibility
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing mold manufacturing techniques face difficulties in precisely creating slots on the lateral faces of a mold bar to accommodate closure devices attached to the lateral walls of a tire groove, leading to issues with flexibility and durability over tire wear, especially on wet road surfaces.
Innovation Solution
A molding element design with recesses on the lateral faces of the bar that do not open onto the upper face, allowing for easy formation of cavities for closure devices, which can be coated for improved demolding and featuring adjustable air discharge ducts to manage shrinkage and stress distribution across multiple closure devices.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If slots are created in the lateral faces of the mold bar to accommodate closure devices attached to lateral walls, then the closure devices can maintain flexibility over time, but the manufacturing process becomes complex and difficult
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of creating slots in the lateral faces of the mold bar (conventional approach), the invention inverts the approach by creating recesses in the upper face of the mold bar. The closure devices are then attached to the lateral walls through these upper-face recesses, which are accessible from above. This inversion transforms a laterally-accessible slot problem into a vertically-accessible recess problem, making manufacturing much easier while achieving the same functional result of attaching closure devices to lateral walls.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention changes the dimension of access from lateral (horizontal) to vertical. Instead of creating slots that open onto the lateral faces of the bar, recesses are created in the upper face, allowing access from the vertical dimension. This dimensional change enables the same attachment function while avoiding the manufacturing difficulties of lateral slot creation.
2Ease of operation
If closure devices are fixed to the bottom of the groove, then they provide initial closure function, but their flexibility decreases over time due to tread wear
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of fixing closure devices to the bottom of the groove (conventional approach), the invention inverts the attachment location to the lateral walls of the groove. By attaching to the lateral walls rather than the bottom, the closure devices maintain their flexibility over time as tread wear occurs, while still providing the necessary closure function.
Solution Approach 2:
The closure devices are pre-attached to the lateral walls of the groove during mold manufacturing, before the tire is put into service. This preliminary attachment ensures that the closure devices are properly positioned and secured to the lateral walls, allowing them to maintain flexibility and function throughout the tire's service life without being affected by tread wear.
3Productivity
If two closure devices are used to cover half the cross section each, then water circulation is improved on wet surfaces, but the attachment region decreases with tread wear
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of attaching closure devices to the bottom of the groove where they would lose attachment region with tread wear, the invention inverts the attachment approach by securing them to the lateral walls. This ensures that the attachment region remains stable and does not decrease with tread wear, while still maintaining the water circulation efficiency provided by multiple closure devices.
Data Source
AI summary
A molding element for a mold for vulcanizing a tread of a tire, comprising a base able to mold part of the tread surface of the tread and a bar able to mold a groove in the tread, the bar comprising two lateral faces extending along its length and projecting from the base and an upper face connecting the lateral faces. The molding element comprises a contact edge formed by the base and the bar, intended to come into contact with another molding element to form all or part of the vulcanizing mold, and further comprising at least one recess in the bar, which opens onto one of the lateral faces and onto the contact edge, but does not open onto the upper face of the bar.