Pneumatic Tire Sipe Segmentation for Wear Reduction
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Solution Overview
Problem
Pneumatic tires with sipes on land portions face challenges in maintaining edge effect while minimizing toe and heel wear, as existing designs either compromise on edge effect or suffer from significant rigidity differences leading to excessive wear.
Innovation Solution
A pneumatic tire design featuring a sipe with wide and narrow parts alternately formed along its length, where the wide parts extend in depth from the tread surface with varying lengths, ensuring that the wide parts gradually disappear with wear, reducing toe and heel wear while maintaining edge effect.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a wide part extending from tread surface to sipe bottom is provided on all sipes, then the sipe is prevented from closing and edge effect is improved, but rigidity difference between stepping side and kicking side is large causing large toe and heel wear
Solution Approach 1:
The sipe is segmented into multiple wide parts at different depths rather than one continuous wide part. The first wide part extends from tread surface to first depth, the second wide part extends from first depth to second depth, and the third wide part extends from second depth to sipe bottom. This segmentation reduces rigidity difference between stepping side and kicking side while preventing complete sipe closure, thereby reducing toe and heel wear while maintaining edge effect.
Solution Approach 2:
Different portions of the sipe have different wide part configurations. The first wide part has a first groove width, the second wide part has a second groove width different from the first, and the third wide part has a third groove width different from the second. This local variation in groove width creates progressive rigidity changes that reduce toe and heel wear while maintaining edge effect throughout the sipe's length.
2Ease of manufacture
If sipes are formed at constant groove width, then manufacturing is simple, but sipes are uniformly closed by braking forces decreasing edge effect
Solution Approach 1:
The sipe is divided into multiple segments with different groove widths at different depths. The first wide part, second wide part, and third wide part each have different groove widths, preventing uniform closure under braking forces while remaining manufacturable through coordinated mold design.
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of varying groove width only in the horizontal plane, the invention varies groove width in the depth dimension by creating wide parts at different depths (first depth, second depth, third depth). This three-dimensional approach prevents complete sipe closure while maintaining manufacturing feasibility.
Data Source
AI summary
In a pneumatic tire in which the sipe extending in a direction crossing a tire circumferential direction is provided on a land portion (block) of a tread portion, a wide part having a wide groove width is provided at three or more places in a length direction of the sipe, and the wide part and a narrow part are formed alternately on a tread surface along the sipe length direction. A plurality of the wide parts are extended in a sipe depth direction from the tread surface, and are provided by changing extended lengths in the sipe depth direction.