Tire Tread Sipe Layout for Dry Steering Stability on Snow
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Solution Overview
Problem
Tires with sipes on the tread portion face a decrease in stiffness, leading to sudden changes in cornering characteristics on dry roads, compromising steering stability while maintaining on-snow performance.
Innovation Solution
A tire design featuring circumferential grooves and land portions with middle and crown blocks, including tie bars and sipes, which maintain stiffness and ground-contact area, ensuring improved steering stability on dry roads without compromising on-snow performance.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If sipes are provided on the tread portion to improve on-snow performance, then on-snow performance is improved, but the stiffness of the land portion decreases significantly, causing sudden changes in cornering characteristics and reduced steering stability on dry road surfaces
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by providing sipes only in specific regions (shoulder land portions and specific areas of crown land portions) rather than uniformly across the entire tread. The middle land portion is designed without sipes to maintain stiffness and steering stability on dry roads, while other regions incorporate sipes for on-snow performance. This localized differentiation allows each region to have the properties needed for its specific function.
Solution Approach 2:
The tread portion is segmented into distinct functional regions: middle land portion, crown land portion, and shoulder land portion. Each segment serves a specific purpose - the middle land portion maintains steering stability on dry roads by excluding sipes, while the shoulder and crown land portions incorporate sipes for snow performance. This segmentation allows independent optimization of each region's characteristics.
2Reliability
If sipes are provided on the tread portion to enhance snow performance, then on-snow performance is improved, but the ground-contact area is reduced, affecting steering stability on dry road surfaces
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by providing sipes only in specific regions (shoulder land portions and specific areas of crown land portions) rather than uniformly across the entire tread. The middle land portion is designed without sipes to maintain stiffness and steering stability on dry roads, while other regions incorporate sipes for on-snow performance. This localized differentiation allows each region to have the properties needed for its specific function.
Solution Approach 2:
The tread portion is segmented into distinct functional regions: middle land portion, crown land portion, and shoulder land portion. Each segment serves a specific purpose - the middle land portion maintains steering stability on dry roads by excluding sipes, while the shoulder and crown land portions incorporate sipes for snow performance. This segmentation allows independent optimization of each region's characteristics.
Data Source
AI summary
A tire includes a tread portion 2. At least one middle lateral groove 10 includes first and second middle tie bars 16 and 17. First and second middle sipes 21 and 22 are provided on a ground-contact surface 15s of at least one middle block 15. The first middle sipe 21 includes a termination end 21a located on an inner side in a tire axial direction with respect to the first middle tie bar 16. The second middle sipe 22 includes a termination end 22a located on an outer side in the tire axial direction with respect to the second middle tie bar 17 and on the inner side in the tire axial direction with respect to the termination end 21a of the first middle sipe 21. On the ground-contact surface 15s of the middle block 15, no groove and no sipe are provided in a first region 23.