Pneumatic Tire with Optimized Crown-and-Tread-Pattern Architecture

A tire for a passenger vehicle, comprising:

• a tread intended to come into contact with the ground via a tread surface comprising grooves, at least one of which forms a space that opens onto the tread surface and is delimited by two main lateral faces connected by a bottom face, having a width W defined by the mean distance between the two lateral faces and a depth D defined by the maximum radial distance between the tread surface and the bottom face),
• at least one groove, which is a major groove, having a width W at least equal to 1 mm and a depth D at least equal to 4 mm,
• the tire also comprising a crown reinforcement, radially on the inside of the tread, comprising at least one layer of reinforcing elements, denoted crown layer,
• the at least one layer of reinforcing elements extending radially from a radially inner surface (RIS) to a radially outer surface (ROS),
• wherein the radially outermost crown layer comprises at least one undulation,
• in that the at least one undulation in the radially outermost crown layer is such that the radially outermost crown layer portion of the undulation is radially on the outside of the points of said radially outermost crown layer that are vertically beneath the centre of the bottom face of the major groove closest to said undulation,
• in that the at least one undulation in the radially outermost crown layer is such that, over at least 10% of the radially outer surface (ROS) of said crown layer, the radial distance (du) between the radially outer surface (ROS) of the radially outermost crown layer and the tread surface is at least 1.5 mm less than the radial distance (dc) between the radially outer surface (ROS) of the radially outermost crown layer and the tread surface, which is the distance vertically beneath the center of the bottom face (243) of the major groove closest to said undulation,
• in that the minimum radial distance (du) between the radially outer surface (ROS) of the radially outermost crown layer of the crown reinforcement and the tread surface is at most equal to the depth D of the closest major groove plus 2 mm and at least equal to the depth D of the closest major groove minus 2 mm,
• in that the part of the tread vertically above at least one undulation in the radially outermost crown layer comprises at least 30% of a rubber compound M, the dynamic shear modulus G* of which, measured at 40° C. at 10% peak-to-peak strain at 10 Hz, is at most equal to 3.25 MPa.