Tire with tread having improved wet traction
OwnerOlivier Piffard, Cyril Guichon +2inventors
InventorsOlivier Piffard, Cyril Guichon, Xavier Saintigny, Raymond Stubblefield
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Abstract
The present invention provides a tire tread having a configuration and material properties that improve wet traction. In particular, the tread has a specified minimum threshold for chamfer density and a maximum level of complex shear modulus for the material that constitutes the tread in order to optimize the road friction coefficient (p) a tire tread experiences during a wet braking event. This results in better wet traction and a shorter stopping distance during the braking event.
Claims20
A tread for a tire, the tread comprising:
- one or more repeating pitches, each repeating pitch comprising tread elements, said tread elements being defined by one or more lateral grooves, said tread elements further comprising leading and trailing edges adjacent said lateral grooves and adjacent sipes found within the tread elements;
- wherein the tread has a weighted average Chamfer Density (CDw) of at least 15%, wherein a chamfer density (CD) for each of the one or more repeating pitches is:
- CD
- =
- TPLCE
- TPLE
- ,
- where, for one repeating pitch, TPLCE is total projected length of the chamfered edges of the one repeating pitch, TPLE is the total projected length of the lateral edges of the one repeating pitch, and
- wherein the tread elements comprise a rubber composition based upon a diene elastomer, a plasticizing system and a cross-linking system, wherein the rubber composition has a shear modulus G* measured at 60° C. of less than 1.0 MPa.
A tread for a tire, the tread comprising:
- one or more repeating pitches, each repeating pitch comprising tread elements, said tread elements being defined by one or more lateral grooves, said tread elements further comprising leading and trailing edges adjacent said lateral grooves and wherein the tread elements have a contact surface adapted for contacting a road and sipes found within the tread elements;
- wherein the tread has a weighted average Chamfer Density (CDw) of at least 15%, wherein a chamfer density (CD) for each of the one or more repeating pitches is:
- CD
- =
- TPLCE
- TPLE
- ,
- where, for one repeating pitch, TPLCE is total projected length of the chamfer edges of the one repeating pitch, TPLE is the total projected length of the lateral edges of the one repeating pitch, and
- wherein the contact surface of the tread elements comprises a rubber composition based upon a diene elastomer, a plasticizing system and a cross-linking system, wherein the rubber composition has a shear modulus G* measured at 60° C. of less than 1.0 MPa.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.