Pneumatic run flat tire
AssigneeHankook Tire Co., Ltd.
InventorsThomas A. Williams, Jong Bok Park, Gary Day
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A run flat tire has a plurality of reinforcing wedges located in the tire sidewall with the hardness of each wedge generally diminishing in the radially inward direction of the sidewall. Since the bead filler is harder than the radial innermost wedge, the hardness at generally the top of the bead filler increases in the radial inward direction. The reinforcing wedges partially overlap each other and can generally have any configuration. The changing of hardness of the radial wedges results in a wedge sequence and thus a more even strain distribution throughout the tire sidewall. This strain distribution extends the run flat life of the tire and also provides a good balance with other tire performance parameters.
Claims12
A run flat tire, comprising;
- a plurality of sidewall reinforcing wedges in each sidewall, at least one said wedge partially overlapping an adjacent wedge in a radial direction, a radially outermost wedge having a higher Shore A hardness than all remaining wedges and a radially innermost wedge having a lower Shore A hardness than all other remaining wedges;
- and
- each of said plurality of wedges diminishing in hardness in a radially inward direction, wherein said tire further comprises a tire bead radially below each sidewall, wherein said radially outermost wedge has a maximum lateral thickness location of from about 75 percent to about 125 percent of the tire sidewall radial length above said tire bead, and wherein said radially innermost wedge has a maximum lateral thickness location of from about 10 percent to about 60 percent of the tire sidewall radial length above said tire bead.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.