Innovations Leading to Longer Service Life for 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.

Pneumatic tire with a steel-reinforced carcass that improves durability and running performance. The tire has a unique carcass design that eliminates the need for additional reinforcement members to maintain the carcass turn-up. The carcass extends from the bead up and around the apex that absorbs impacts. The key is that one end of the carcass is closer to the bead than the other end is to the apex. This maintains the turn-up height without additional components, reducing weight and rolling resistance while still preventing the carcass from loosening.

Heavy-duty tire design and manufacturing to improve bead durability without increasing rolling resistance. The tire has a unique carcass contour and molding process. The carcass contour has an outwardly bulging curved portion connected to an inwardly recessed inversely curved portion. This shape is represented by two tangent arcs. The ratio of distances from the tire equator and bead base to the arcs' inflection point falls within specific ranges. The molding process uses a clip width slightly larger than the rim width to apply pressure evenly during vulcanization.

Tire construction for a motorcycle tire that provides improved turning performance and durability compared to conventional motorcycle tires. The tire has a tread reinforcing layer with specific belt and band ply orientations and widths. The inner belt ply has cords angled greater than 5 degrees to the tire circumferential direction. The outer belt ply has cords angled greater than 5 degrees but with a wider width than the inner belt ply. The band ply has cords angled less than or equal to 5 degrees. This combination of belt and band ply angles and widths optimizes cornering force distribution and reduces tire wear for improved turning performance and durability.

Pneumatic tire design that reduces rolling resistance and improves fuel efficiency without sacrificing durability. The tire has a bead-reinforcing layer outside the carcass that reinforces the bead portion. The tire also has specific geometric and material properties like loss tangent, complex elastic modulus, groove ratios, and sidewall characteristics.

Producing a motor vehicle tire with improved bonding between textile cords and surrounding rubber to enhance tire durability. The method involves dipping the cords in a bath containing polyisocyanates to activate the bonding, instead of using resorcinol-formaldehyde dips. The cords are then coated with a rubber compound containing specific rubber types and carbon blacks. This avoids toxic and environmentally harmful resorcinol-formaldehyde dips while still providing adequate bonding.

A pneumatic tire that exhibits excellent grip performance and durability during high-speed running, and also improved fuel efficiency. The tire achieves this by having tread regions with different thermal conductivities. These regions are made of rubber compositions with high and low thermal conductivity. The high thermal conductivity composition dissipates heat generated during high-speed running, preventing overheating and maintaining grip. The low thermal conductivity composition retains heat and provides durability.

A pneumatic tire with reduced rolling resistance and improved durability for high-speed driving. The tire has a side rubber thickness of 3mm or less outside the carcass at the widest point, a loss tangent of 0.15 or less for the rubber, and specific dimensional ratios. The ratio of (outer diameter minus 2 times height) to width is at least 470mm, and the aspect ratio is 45% or higher.

A high fuel efficiency tire with reduced rolling resistance at high speeds and excellent durability. The tire has a sidewall and clinch portion where the loss tangent measured at 70°C and 10 Hz is such that (tan δ sidewall + tan δ clinch) ≤ 0.3 and |tan δ sidewall - tan δ clinch| ≤ 0.07. It also has a sidewall-to-clinch complex elastic modulus difference of (E clinch - E sidewall) ≤ 8.0 MPa.

Pneumatic tire design with improved bead durability and ride comfort. It has a reinforcing rubber portion next to the turnup section of the carcass ply, between the bead and sidewall. This reinforcing rubber portion has a radially outer end that extends beyond the radially outer end of the inner rubber layer. It also has a thicker first portion where the inner and outer rubber layers are laminated, versus a thinner second portion where they are not. The outer rubber layer has a higher loss tangent and complex elastic modulus than the inner layer.

Tire with improved grip on rocky and snow/mud surfaces while maintaining block durability. The tread has crown blocks with a chamfered outer edge surrounding the ground contact surface. The interior of the block has step-shaped bends in its cross-section. This design allows the blocks to shear through snow and mud for traction on soft surfaces, while also providing bending rigidity to improve durability.

A non-pneumatic tire with enhanced durability, particularly when bearing weight, by reducing friction between squeezed and bent spoke assemblies. The tire has a tread layer in contact with the ground and a spoke layer connecting the tread to an inner cylinder. The spoke layer has straight spokes, bending spokes, and connecting ribs. The bending spokes have non-linear segments. When squeezed underweight, the bending spokes flex instead of contacting and rubbing against adjacent spokes. This prevents friction that can wear and break the spokes.

Rubber reinforcing material for tires with reduced weight, improved durability, and thinner profile. The material includes a fabric base woven with specific yarn properties and density, an adhesive layer on the fabric, and a thin rubber coating. The fabric has warp yarns of 420-800 deniers and a density of 55-65/inch, and weft yarns with shrinkage of -1% to +3%. This allows the rubber layer to be thinner while maintaining strength.

A pneumatic tire design with improved flat spot resistance and high-speed durability. The tire has an optimized belt layer construction and bead design. It features a band layer with separate inner radial bands in each tread land. The inner radial bands have edges set back from the nearest groove to reduce strain. This reduces flat spots from band deformation when parked. The tire also has a shorter outer bead apex height to limit sidewall deformation. The optimized belt and bead design balance flat spot resistance with high-speed durability.

Resilient, reinforced support structure for non-pneumatic tires that improves durability and load transmission. The support has a curved, flexible membrane connecting the inner and outer joints. The curved shape allows the support to flex and absorb impacts while maintaining radial stiffness. The joints connect to tire components like hubs and tread bands.

Pneumatic tire with low rolling resistance and improved durability for high-speed running. The tire contains a tread rubber with specific properties to reduce internal distortion and heating during high-speed use. The tread must contain a blend of styrene-butadiene rubber and isoprene rubber, with a low loss tangent (tan δ) of 0.14 or less. The tire dimensions must also meet certain ratios to prevent excessive growth at high speed.

A tire design that allows the reduction of rolling resistance while maintaining good wet performance and durability. The tire tread has three layers - cap, intermediate, and base. The layers have different loss tangents, with the base layer having the lowest. The intermediate layer is between the cap and base layers. The cap layer has the widest axial width, the base layer has the narrowest, and the difference in width is within a certain range.

Tire design that maintains performance as it wears by using a tread rubber that does not harden too much during aging and a groove shape that retains water channeling. The tread rubber hardness after heat aging should be only 10-25% harder than the new tread. The groove design should have a groove depth retention ratio of 1.05-1.40 when worn to 50% of new depth, to maintain wet traction. This allows water to be retained in the grooves when worn.

Tire rubber compositions with improved wear resistance without sacrificing rolling resistance. The compositions use a reinforcing filler predominantly comprising a filler covered at least partially by silica, like silica-coated carbon black. The filler dispersion in the rubber matrix is optimized to be uniform without using a coupling agent. The compositions also minimize plasticizers. Removing coupling agents and plasticizers improves the reinforcing properties of silica-covered fillers for improved tire wear.

Pneumatic tire with improved high-speed steering stability, durability, and low rolling resistance. The tire has a cord-reinforced layer and the rubber coating over the cord contains a specific rubber composition. The coating rubber has carbon black with high nitrogen adsorption surface area and optionally some aroma oil. The base rubber is mostly natural rubber with a specific strength ratio of 100C.