Tyre Crown Lateral Groove Design for Snow Traction and Wear Resistance
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing snow tires face a trade-off between improved on-snow performance and wear resistance, as increasing crown lateral groove depth to enhance snow traction often compromises the land portion's wear resistance.
Innovation Solution
The tire design incorporates crown lateral grooves with a sipe portion and a main portion that form a single groove wall, where the sipe portion is narrow enough to prevent excessive stiffness reduction and the main portion has a smaller depth than the main grooves, connected to second groove elements and partial tie-bars, allowing for effective snow column formation and traction while maintaining wear resistance.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the depth of crown lateral grooves is increased to improve on-snow performance, then snow traction is enhanced, but wear resistance of the land portion decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The crown lateral groove is designed with non-uniform depth: the sipe portion has a first depth while the main portion has a second depth that is greater than the first depth. This local variation in groove depth allows the sipe portion to maintain land portion stiffness for wear resistance, while the deeper main portion effectively captures and compresses snow columns for improved on-snow performance.
2Strength
If narrow sipe portion is used to maintain land portion stiffness, then wear resistance is preserved, but snow capture capability may be reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The crown lateral groove utilizes three-dimensional depth variation to resolve the contradiction. The sipe portion maintains narrow width and smaller depth to preserve land portion stiffness, while the main portion extends deeper in the radial direction to effectively capture and compress snow columns, thereby maintaining snow capture capability without compromising structural integrity.
Data Source
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AI summary
A tyre includes a tread portion including a crown land portion defined between two main grooves extending continuously in a tyre circumferential direction. The crown land portion is provided with crown lateral grooves traversing the crown land portion. Each of the crown lateral grooves, in a cross-sectional view perpendicular to its longitudinal direction, includes a sipe portion having a width equal to or less than 1.5 mm, and a main portion connected to the sipe portion and opening at a ground contact surface of the crown land portion. The main portion has a width enlarging from the sipe portion. The main portion has a depth smaller than depths of the main grooves. The sipe portion has a first wall extending in a tyre radial direction so as to be continuous with a first wall of the main portion to form a single groove wall together.