Pneumatic Tire Sipe Wear Indicators That Preserve Drainage
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional wear indicators on pneumatic vehicle tires, such as sipes or depressions, can adversely affect water drainage and profile stiffness, and are often not easily identifiable, leading to uneven wear patterns and performance issues.
Innovation Solution
The wear indicator is formed by a sipe portion with a recognizable symbol, such as a sun or snowflake, which maintains the sipe's structural integrity and provides clear visual cues for wear, ensuring easy identification of tire wear states.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If conventional wear indicators are formed by profile negatives or depressions, then wear indication is provided, but water drainage characteristics are adversely affected and profile stiffness is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The wear indicator function is extracted from the groove structure and transferred to the sipe structure. The sipe portion forms the wear indicator while the groove maintains its original water drainage function without being locally reduced in cross-section.
Solution Approach 2:
The sipe portion is designed with specific local characteristics (symbolic form, depth, width) that differ from the rest of the sipe structure, allowing it to serve as a visual wear indicator while the surrounding sipe structure maintains its functional properties for water evacuation and grip.
2Object-affected harmful factors
If wear indicators are integrated in sipes, then groove cross section and profile stiffness are preserved, but the wear indicator is not easily identifiable
Solution Approach 1:
The sipe portion is designed to create visual contrast through its symbolic form (sun or snowflake pattern) that becomes increasingly visible as the tread wears down, providing clear visual cues to the user about the wear state without requiring color changes in the material itself.
Solution Approach 2:
The sipe portion is designed with asymmetric symbolic forms (sun or snowflake patterns) that are distinctly different from the regular sipe structure, making them easily identifiable as wear indicators. The symbolic form creates a visually distinctive pattern that stands out against the uniform tread background.
3Reliability
If sipe portion is kept down to sipe base, then wear indicator remains visible longer, but grip properties on snow may be affected
Solution Approach 1:
The sipe portion is designed to extend only partially to the sipe base, stopping at a radially determined distance before the maximum depth. This partial extension is sufficient to provide visible wear indication while leaving enough material at the sipe base to maintain grip properties on snow and other surfaces.
Data Source
AI summary
The invention relates to a pneumatic vehicle tire comprising a tread with profile positives delimited by grooves, including profile positives which are provided with sipes, which in plan view run at least in certain portions at an angle of 0° to 50° to the axial direction and have a width of 0.4 mm to 1.6 mm and a depth at the deepest point that is at least the profile depth reduced by 4.5 mm and at most 100% of the profile depth, with the sipes in each case being involved in forming at least one wear indicator. The wear indicator is formed by a sipe portion of the sipe which in plan view has the form of a sun symbol or a snowflake symbol.