Innovations for Enhancing Wet Road Performance of Tires

Tire tread design with sipes that maintain performance as the tire wears. The tread has sipes with three different depths, forming three levels in the tread blocks. The shallowest sipes are at the top level and the deepest sipes are at the bottom level. This allows the sipes to maintain their biting edges and void volume as the tread wears down, improving wet and snow traction over the life of the tire. The staggered depth levels also prevent damage or tearing when the mold is removed from the tread during manufacturing.

Source

Winter tire tread formulation with good cold-weather performance and excellent traction on wet, snow-covered, and icy roads. The tread uses a combination of high and low Tg elastomers with silica and carbon black fillers. The elastomers are solution SBR, emulsion SBR, and cis-polybutadiene rubber. The silica has reduced coupling agent levels and increased silanization times to improve hysteresis and abrasion resistance. The tread can also contain vegetable oil extension of the elastomers for further cold weather flexibility.

Source

Car tire design allows high performance on track while maintaining safety on wet roads. The tread has a narrow central region and a wide shoulder region. The shoulders have wide, deep grooves for track traction. The central region has ribs and lacks grooves for dry handling. The shoulders also have annular sections without grooves to maintain stiffness. This balance allows high torque transfer on track while minimizing hydroplaning on wet roads.

Source

Tires with an improved sipe design that enhances wet and dry performance without sacrificing wear resistance. The sipes have chamfered edges and raised bottoms. The chamfers are shorter than the sipe length and overlap slightly. The maximum depth of the chamfered portion is between 0.2 to 0.5 times the sipe depth. The sipe width is constant from the chamfer end to the groove bottom. This design balances wet traction from the chamfers and dry stability from the sipe. It also maintains sipe rigidity and wear resistance.

Source

Tire tread compositions that improve wet traction without sacrificing rolling resistance and wear. The compositions use functionalized polymers like butyl rubber and ethylene-propylene-diene terpolymer as additives. The functionalization involves adding sulfur and other compounds to modify the polymer properties.

Source

A tire with a multilayer tread design that maintains grip on wet surfaces even when worn to legal limits. The tread has an intermediate layer between the base and outer layers. The modulus ratio between the base and intermediate layers is 7-25. The viscoelastic loss ratio between the intermediate and outer layers is at least 30%. The radial thickness ratio between the outer and intermediate layers is 3-10. By optimizing the properties of these three layers, the tire keeps wet grip performance as it wears. The intermediate layer properties transition between the base and outer layers to maintain key performance.

Source

Tire rubber compositions that simultaneously improve wet grip performance and fuel economy in tires. The compositions have a specific shape of the tan δ versus temperature curve with a high peak and sharp shape. The key ratio is peak tan δ divided by half width ≥ 0.025. This is achieved by using rubber and polymer components that are pre-mixed based on similar SP values to enhance compatibility and performance.

Source

Rubber composition for tires that can achieve improved wet grip performance without sacrificing hardness. The composition contains a diene rubber and silica. The silica has a value of Dm/Rg of 0.20 nm−1 or more, where Dm is the mass fractal dimension of the silica aggregate and Rg is the inertia radius of the aggregate.

Source

Rubber composition for tires that enables improved wet grip and rolling resistance performance, which are conflicting properties. The rubber composition contains diene rubber and silica with a silica surface modified with alkylalkoxysilane. The key aspect is that the vulcanized rubber exhibits a high change rate of silica aggregate distance when deformed, calculated as V50/V0. This indicates a high deformation following the property of the rubber polymer chains around the silica aggregates. A V50/V0 ratio of 1.30 or more, preferably 1.32 or more, enables achieving both improved wet grip and rolling resistance.

Source

A tire with improved wet grip performance and chipping resistance. The tire has a specialized tread design with lateral grooves that do not open into circumferential grooves. The tread rubber composition uses a combination of isoprene and styrene-butadiene rubber along with a small particle-size silica filler and silane coupling agent. The rubber layer also has a low brittleness temperature.

Source

Rubber compounds for heavy-duty truck and bus tire treads provide reduced rolling resistance and improved wet skid resistance and wear compared to conventional tire tread compounds. The rubber compounds contain a blend of long-chain branched cyclopentene ring-opening rubber (LCB-CPR) along with natural rubber (NR) and/or polybutadiene rubber (BR), reinforcing fillers, and process oil.

Source

Tire tread rubber composition with improved wet grip and rolling resistance performance. The composition contains a rubber component, fillers, and optional plasticizers. The key ingredient is a specific type of rosin ester resin with low acid and hydroxyl numbers. The rosin ester resin reduces rolling resistance while improving wet grip compared to other rosin esters or hydrocarbon resins. The tire composition allows a tire tread to have both a high wet grip and low rolling resistance for improved safety and fuel efficiency.

Source

Pneumatic tire designed for improved snow and wear performance without sacrificing wet and dry grip. Features include a tread with high sipe density, closely spaced lateral sipes and grooves, and an elongated compliance feature like a groove or sipe. The tire also has a cap ply with high rupture force to maintain tread rigidity. The shoulder ribs have lateral sipes with higher angle and the central ribs have lateral grooves with lower angle.

Source

Rubber composition for tires that provides good wet traction, durability, and rolling resistance. The composition includes a partially saturated elastomer with low double bond content, aluminum hydroxide filler, and optional resin, oil, silane, and accelerator.

Source

Rubber composition that provides improved tire grip and limited rolling resistance for high-performance summer tires. The rubber composition contains styrene butadiene rubber, a diene-based rubber, fillers like silica, small amounts of aluminum hydroxide, and a rosin-based resin. The aluminum hydroxide provides a wet grip and the rosin resin enhances wet handling performance. This composition achieves a balance of grip, rolling resistance, and robustness for high-performance summer tires.

Source

A rubber composition for tire treads that balances rolling resistance, wet performance, and treadwear. The composition contains two different styrene-butadiene rubbers with specific glass transition temperatures. It also has silica, hydrocarbon resin, and natural rubber or polyisoprene. The blend of rubbers with different glass transition temperatures, along with the hydrocarbon resin and silica, synergistically improves rolling resistance and wet performance without compromising treadwear.

Source

A heavy-duty tire rubber composition that provides excellent wet grip performance and steering stability for heavy-duty truck and bus tires. The composition includes a solid rubber, a modified liquid diene rubber with a specific silane functional group, and a filler-like silica. The modified liquid diene rubber improves wet grip while maintaining compatibility with the solid rubber.

Source

Tire tread composition to reduce the increase in hardness and decrease in wet grip from before to after heat aging. The tread contains a blend of styrene elastomer and urethane particles.

Source

A tire has improved fuel efficiency, wet grip, abrasion resistance, and later-stage wet grip. The tire uses a tread rubber composition with an isoprene rubber and a high vinyl styrene-butadiene rubber, plus a high ratio of ash (silica filler). The tread has at least one flask-like circumferential groove that narrows towards the tire center. The SBR with high vinyl content improves wet grip and co-crosslinks with the isoprene rubber for abrasion resistance. The isoprene rubber for rigidity and fuel efficiency. The high ash level improves silica dispersion. The flask groove widens as the tire wears to maintain grip.

Source

A tire design that improves dry and wet grip, rolling resistance, and noise without compromising wear resistance. The tire crown has undulations in the working layer of the crown reinforcement under the outer ribs. This reduces the radial distance between the outer layer and tread surface compared to the inner layer, stiffening the crown there. This improves grip, rolling resistance, and noise. The undulations cause non-uniform rib wear, so they're limited to the outer ribs.

Source