Tire Tread Dimple Layout for Balanced Wet and Dry Steering
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing pneumatic tire technologies face challenges in achieving a well-balanced enhancement of wet steering stability performance and dry steering stability performance.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of a pneumatic tire design featuring a plurality of dimple groups on the tread surface, where the dimple groups are composed of dimples disposed at intervals and aligned in the tire circumferential direction, with specific ratios and distances between dimples to enhance drainage performance and ground contact pressure.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If multiple dimples are arranged closely to improve drainage efficiency, then wet performance is enhanced, but the structural integrity and ground contact pressure deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
Multiple dimples are merged into a unified dimple group structure with specific geometric relationships. The dimples are arranged such that their combined drainage effect is maximized while their collective impact on ground contact area is minimized. The specific configuration (with center-to-center distances and relative positions) ensures that the merged structure provides efficient water evacuation without creating excessive voids in the contact patch.
Solution Approach 2:
The dimple group uses a limited number of dimples (at least three but not excessive) with moderate individual sizes. This partial action approach provides sufficient drainage capability for wet conditions while avoiding over-drimpling that would compromise ground contact pressure. The design strikes a balance by implementing just enough drainage features to handle typical wet road scenarios without sacrificing dry road performance.
Data Source
AI summary
Provided is a pneumatic tire with wet steering stability performance and dry steering stability performance enhanced in a well-balanced manner.A dimple group is composed of a plurality of dimples (100 to 104) disposed at intervals and aligned in a tire circumferential direction. When the minimum center-to-center distance between different dimples (100, 102) in an identical dimple group is defined as K and the minimum center-to-center distance between dimples (104, 100) in different dimple groups is defined as L, the ratio L/K is 3.5 or more and 10.0 or less and the minimum center-to-center distance L is 20 mm or more and equal to or less than a ground contact length.