Tread design

Of course, the above appHes when staying within a given tread design and at equivalent tread stiffness. Tire designs that allow water to be channeled out of the tread mbber/road contact area are significantly superior to those that do not, even when more contact area is available. Tread element stiffness plays an important role in traction capabiUties as softer treads have less column stiffness and reduce tread void areas, ie, there is more mbber on the road but this is offset if water channeling is significantly reduced. 

The rolling resistance coefficient of a tire depends on the construction of the tire carcass, the elastic characteristics of the tire material, the tread design, and characteristics of the roadbed. It increases with decreasing wheel diameter, tire underinflation, and roadbed compliance. It decreases as the operating temperature of the tire rises. 

Advancement in tire technology is expected to continue, to take advantage of emerging technologies, to meet further customer demands, and to accommodate new applications. Different tires will be introduced in the front and rear positions of automobiles as a result of the different loadings. Unsymmetrical tread designs will have different patterns on the outer and inner halves... 

Sipes Small individual tread voids, generally added to a tread design to improve traction characteristics. 

Pitch length Length of each repeating unit in a tread pattern. Variable pitch lengths in a tread design can be used to minimize noise. Pitch would be analogous to the wavelength of a sine wave. 

Blade A protrusion in a curing mold that forms part of the tread design. The protrusion forms a corresponding depression in the finished tire. 

A realistic tread design is meshed in a separate process and is snapped onto the carcass mesh. Because of the complexity of the tread geometry, it is difficult to achieve mesh contiguity between carcass and tread. Mesh incompatibility is handled by imposing multipoint constraints (MFCs) between contacting surfaces. 

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