Pneumatic tires

Abstract: A pneumatic tire (11) having a tread divided into a tread portion by grooves (13), in which each of said grooves has an intersect portion and an angle of an island portion surrounded by said intersect portion is different from that of another part at the same island portion. In such a tire, running performances on dry roads are improved by making a distance in radial direction from an outer surface of said tread portion (12) to a bottom (20) of the groove (13) at the intersect portion larger as the angle becomes smaller.

Description: This invention relates to a pneumatic tire. As a tread pattern of a pneumatic tire, there have hitherto been known a so-called rib type pattern in which plural main grooves extending zigzag in the circumferential direction are formed on the outer surface of the tread portion to form plural ribs located between adjoining main grooves and between the main groove and the tread end, or a so-called block type pattern in which plural main grooves extending in the circumferential direction and plural transverse grooves extending substantially in the axial direction and crossing with the main grooves are formed on the outer surface of the tread portion to form many polygonal blocks. In the conventional pneumatic tire, however, maximum cornering force largely lowers at a large steering angle to degrade running performances of the tire on dry road. The present inventors have made various studies in order to elucidate the cause of lowering the maximum cornering force at such a large steering angle, and have found out the following. Since rubber is generally non-compressive (when pressure is applied to rubber, deformation occurs but the volume is unchangeable), when island portions of the tread such as ribs and the like made from rubber are contacted with the ground, the island portions are crushed in the radial direction under loading to expand in a direction parallel to the ground contacting surface. In this case, when an angle of the island portion surrounded by an intersect portion of the grooves is small, an occupying ratio of the island portion in the vicinity of the intersect portion is low and the space allowing rubber to expand is wide, so that the ground contact pressure of the island portion becomes low. On the other hand, when the angle of the island portion is large, the occupying ratio of the island portion in the vicinity of the intersect portion is high and the space allowing rubber to expand is narrow, so that the ground contact pressure of the island portion becomes high. If the ground contact pressure is non-uniform in the island portions of the tread, side force concentrates in a portion having a high ground contact pressure in accordance with the increase of the steering angle and consequently maximum cornering force lowers. Moreover, when the tread portion is comprised of many polygonal blocks each having sides of different lengths, rubber quantity deforming in the vicinity of a center of a short side is small and is largely crushed in the radial direction to lower the ground contact pressure, while rubber quantity deforming in the vicinity of a center of a long side is large and the crushed quantity in the radial direction is smaller than that in the vicinity of the center of the short side to increase the ground contact pressure. Such a non-uniformity of the ground contact pressure brings about the lowering of the maximum cornering force as mentioned above. Attention is also drawn to the disclosure of FR-A-2317112 showing a tire according to the preamble of claim 1. The present invention provides a pneumatic tire having a tread portion divided into a tread pattern by grooves wherein polygonal blocks are formed by arranging a plurality of main grooves extending in the circumferential direction and a plurality of transverse grooves extending non-perpendicular to said main grooves, and wherein a distance (L) in the radial direction from the surface of said block to the bottom of said main groove at a corner of said block having an acute angle (γ) is greater than a distance (M) in the radial direction from the surface of said block to the bottom of said main groove at a corner of said block having an obtuse angle (δ). Moreover, when the outer surface of the block is defined by sides having different lengths, the distance in radial direction from the bottom of the main groove to the outer surface in the vicinity of the center of the longest side, the distance in radial direction from the bottom of the main groove to the outer surface in the vicinity of the center of the shortest side, and the distance in radial direction from the outer surface to the bottom of the main groove in the corner portion of the block are preferably made larger in this order. As previously mentioned, the ground contact pressure of the island portion of the tread running on the road surface is low in a portion where the angle of the intersect portion defined by the groove is small and high in a portion where the angle is large. Therefore, according to the invention, the distance in radial direction from the outer surface of the tread to the bottom of the main groove at the intersect portion is made larger as the angle becomes small, whereby the rubber quantity in the vicinity of the intersect portion having a small angle is increased to increase the ground contact pressure, while the rubber quantity in the vicinity of the intersect portion having a large angle is decreased to reduce the ground contact pressure and hence the ground contact pressure in each island portion is equalized over the whole of the tread. As a result, even if the steering angle becomes large, the concentration of side force into a portion having a higher ground contact pressure is mitigated to prevent the lowering of maximum cornering force. Since the central surface portion of the block is surrounded by rubber, there is no escaping portion for rubber during the ground contacting and hence the ground contact pressure becomes maximum. Therefore, the distance in radial direction of such a portion is made minimum to further equalize the ground contact pressure over the whole of the block. When the outer surface of the block is comprised of sides having different lengths, the ground contact pressure of the block is low in the vicinity of the center of the short side and high in the vicinity of the center of the long side. For this purpose, the ground contact pressure can be equalized by making large the distance in radial direction from the bottom of the main groove to the outer surface in the vicinity of the center of the longest side, the distance in radial direction from the bottom of the main groove to the outer surface in the vicinity of the centre of the shortest side, and the distance in radial direction from the outer surface of the block corner portion to the bottom of the main groove in this order; or by minimizing the distance in radial direction from the bottom of the main groove in the surface center of the block to the outer surface; or by making large the distances in radial direction from the bottom of the main groove to the outer surface as the length of the side becomes short when the kind of length of the side is not less than three. The invention will be further described, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings, wherein: Fig. 1 is an exploded view of a first embodiment of a tread portion according to the invention; Fig. 2 is a sectional view of Fig. 1 taken along a line of VII- VII; Fig. 3 is a sectional view of Fig. 1 taken along a line of VIII-VIII; Fig. 4 is a sectional view of Fig. 1 taken along a line of IX-IX; Fig. 5 is a graph showing a value of maximum cornering force to a slip angle; Fig. 6 is an exploded view of a second embodiment of a tread portion according to the invention; Fig. 7 is a sectional view of Fig. 6 taken along a line XIII-XIII; Fig. 8 is a sectional view of Fig. 6 taken along a line of XIV-XIV; and Fig. 9 is a graph showing a value of maximum cornering force to a slip angle. In Fig. 1 is shown a first embodiment of a pneumatic tire according to the invention, in which plural main grooves 24 extending straightforward in the circumferential direction and plural transverse grooves 25 extending substantially in the axial direction and crossing with the main grooves 24 are arranged in an outer surface of a tread portion 22 to form a great amount of blocks 26 having a polygonal shape, parallelograms in the illustrated embodiment. In these blocks 26, edge segments 28, 29 are formed in boundaries among the outer surface of the block 26, sidewall 23 of the main groove 24 and sidewall of the transverse groove 25, i.e. intersect portions between the outer surface of the block 26 and sidewalls of the main and transverse grooves. As a result, a corner portion 30 defined by intersecting the edge segments 28, 29 at an intersect angle γ of less than 90° and a corner portion 31 defined by intersecting the edge segments 28, 29 at an intersect angle δ of more than 90° are formed in each of the blocks 26. In this case, the ground contact pressure is low in the vicinity of the corner portion 30 having a small intersect angle γ and the ground contact pressure in the vicinity of the corner portion 31 having a large intersect angle δ is high likewise the aforementioned case, and hence the ground contact pressure is non-uniform over the whole of the block to lower the maximum cornering force. According to the invention, therefore, as shown in Figs. 2 to 4, a distance in radial direction L from the outer surface of the block 26 to a bottom 32 of the main groove 24 in the vicinity of the corner portion 30 having a small intersect angle γ is made larger than a distance in radial direction M from the outer surface of the block 26 to a bottom 32 of the main groove 24 in the vicinity of the corner portion 31 having a large intersect angle δ. In other words, the vicinity of the corner portion 30 is protruded outward in the radial direction from the sectional profile (shown by phantom line) of the tread portion 22, while the vicinity of the corner portion 31 is dented inward in the radial direction from the sectional profile of the tread portion 22. Since a central portion of each block 26 at its outer surface is surrounded by rubber and is highest in the ground contact pressure, a distance in radial direction N from the outer surface of the block 26 to the bottom 32 of the main groove 24 at the central portion of the block is made smaller than a minimum value of the radial distance in the vicinity of the corner portion, i.e. the radial distance M in the illustrated embodiment. Further, the outer surfaces of these portions of each block 26 are connected to each other in form of a smooth curve. As a result, the ground contact pressure in the vicinity of the corner portion 30 is increased, while the ground contact pressure in the vicinity of the corner portion 31 is decreased and also the ground contact pressure in the central portion of the block 26 is most decreased, whereby the ground contact pressure over the whole of the block 26 is equalized. Therefore, even if the steering angle becomes large, the concentration of side force into a portion having a high ground contact pressure is mitigated to prevent the lowering of maximum cornering force. In this case, the difference (mm) between she radial distance L and the radial distance M is preferably within a range of 0.01 to 0.025 times of the difference (degree) between the intersect angle γ and the intersect angle δ as an absolute value. When the difference is less than 0.01 times, the equalization of the ground contact pressure is insufficient, while when it exceeds 0.025 times, the ground contact pressure in the vicinity of the corner portion 30 also increases and the ground contact pressure in the vicinity of the corner portion 31 also decreases and, as a result, the ground contact pressure in the block is rather non-uniform. The difference (mm) between the radial distance N and the minimum value of the radial distance in the corner portion, i.e. radial distance M in the illustrated embodiment is preferably within a range of 0.3 to 0.8. In the above illustrated embodiment, there are two large and small intersect angles, but three or more intersect angles may be taken. In the latter case, the distance in radial direction from the outer surface of the block to the bottom of the main groove in the corner portion is made large as the intersect angle becomes small. Furthermore, the outer surface of the block 26 is convex polygonal in the illustrated embodiment, but it may be concave polygonal such as T-shaped form or the like. The invention will be described with respect to the following experimental example. In this experiment, there were provided a comparative tire 1 having a tread pattern as shown in Fig. 1 in which distances in radial direction from the outer surface of the block 26 to the bottom 32 of the main groove 24 in the vicinities of the corner portions 30, 31 and the central portion of the block 26 were the same, and a test tire 1 having a tread pattern as shown in Fig. 1 in which the difference between the radial distance L in the vicinity of the corner portion 30 and the radial distance M in the vicinity of the corner portion 31 was 1 mm and the difference between the radial distance N in the central portion of the block 26 and the radial distance M in the vicinity of the corner portion 31 was 0.5 mm. In the comparative tire 1 and the test tire 1, the block 26 had an intersect angle γ of 60° and an intersect angle δ of 120°. Each of these tires had a tire size of 205/60 R15. Then, each of these tires was inflated under an internal pressure of 2 kgf/cm² and run on a drum at a speed of 30 km/hr under a load of 360 kgf, during which slip angle was variously changed to measure maximum cornering force. The measured results are shown in Table 1 and Fig. 5. As seen from Fig. 5, the maximum cornering force in the comparative tire largely reduces as the slip angle becomes large (the steering angle becomes large), while the maximum cornering force in the test tires does not reduce but slightly increases. Furthermore, each of the comparative tire 1 and the test tire 1 was mounted onto a passenger car and run on a winding road, during which running performances on dry road were evaluated by a feeling test of a professional driver. In this case, the running performances were shown by an index value on the basis that the comparative tire was 100, in which the larger the index value, the better the performances. The results are also shown in Table 1. As seen from the results of Table 1, the running performances on dry road in the test tire are excellent as compared with those of the comparative tire . In Fig. 6 is shown a second embodiment of the pneumatic tire according to the invention. In this tire, plural main grooves 34 extending in the circumferential direction of the tire, five straight main grooves in the illustrated embodiment, are formed in an outer surface of a tread portion 33. Furthermore, plural transverse grooves 35 extending substantially in the axial direction of the tire (inclined at a small angle with respect to the axial direction in the illustrated embodiment) are formed in each half of the tread portion 33 so as to cross with the main grooves and arranged so as to be separate from each other at an equal interval in the circumferential direction, in which a group of the transverse grooves in the right-side half of the tread portion is shifted at a given pitch with respect to a group of the transverse grooves in the left-side half of the tread portion. Thus, a great amount of blocks 36 having a convex polygon (all interior angles are less than 180°), parallelograms in the illustrated embodiment, are defined in the outer surface of the tread portion 33 by the main grooves 34 and the transverse grooves 35. Each of these blocks 36 is comprised of two or more kinds of sides, i.e. a pair of long sides 39 extending in the circumferential direction and a pair of short sides 40 extending substantially in the axial direction in the illustrated embodiment. When such a tire is run under loading, since rubber is incompressive, the blocks 36 are crushed in the radial direction to escape in parallel to the ground contacting surface (expand toward insides of the main groove 34 and the transverse groove 35). In this case, however, rubber quantity of the block 36 deforming in the vicinity of the short side 40 is less, so that the block is largely crushed to lower the ground contact pressure, while rubber quantity of the block 36 deforming in the vicinity of the long side 39 is larger than that in the vicinity of the short side 40 and the crushed quantity in the radial direction is small as compared with the vicinity of the short side 40 and hence the ground contact pressure becomes higher than that of the vicinity of the short side 40. Further, the central surface portion of each block 36 is surrounded by rubber and there is no space for escaping rubber, so that the ground contact pressure in the central portion of the block 36 is higher than that in the vicinity of the long side 39 and becomes maximum. Moreover , corner portions of each block 36, i.e. a pair of obtuse-angled portions 42 and a pair of acute-angled portions 43 have an interior angle of less than 180° (because the long side 39 and the short side 40 are straight), so that rubber quantity deforming in the corner portions is less than that in the vicinity of each side (long side 39, short side 40) and hence the crushed quantity in the radial direction of these obtuse-angled portion 42 and acute-angled portion 43 becomes larger than that in the vicinity of the short side 40 and the ground contact pressure is lower than that in the vicinity of the short side 40 and becomes minimum. As a result, the ground contact pressure is non-uniform over the whole of the block 36, so that side force concentrates into a portion having a high ground contact pressure as the steering angle becomes large to lower maximum cornering force. According to the invention, therefore, as shown in Figs. 7 and 8, a distance in radial direction C from a bottom 46 of the main groove 34 to the outer surface of the block 36 in the vicinity of a shortest side among sides in the outer surface of the block 36, i.e. the short side 40 in the illustrated embodiment, is made larger than a distance in radial direction D from the bottom 46 of the main groove 34 to the outer surface in the vicinity of a longest side among sides in the outer surface of the block 36, i.e. the long side 39 in the illustrated embodiment. In other words, the vicinity of the short side 40 is protruded outward in the radial direction from a sectional profile of the tread portion 33 shown by phantom line, while the vicinity of the long side 39 is dented inward in the radial direction from the sectional profile of the tread portion 33. As a result, rubber quantity in the vicinity of the short side 40 is increased to increase the ground contact pressure in the vicinity of the short side 40, while rubber quantity in the vicinity of the long side 39 is decreased to reduce the ground contact pressure in the vicinity of the long side 39, whereby the ground contact pressure is equalized over the whole of the block 36. Furthermore, a distance in radial direction F from the bottom 46 of the main groove 34 to the outer surface in the central surface portion 41 of the block 36 is made smaller than the distance in radial direction from the bottom 46 of the main groove 34 to the outer surface in the vicinity of a longest side among sides of the block 36, i.e. radial distance D in the vicinity of the long side 39 in the illustrated embodiment, whereby the ground contact pressure in the central surface portion 41 showing a highest ground contact pressure is largely decreased to further equalize the ground contact pressure over the whole of the block 36. Moreover, distances in radial direction from the bottom 46 of the main groove 34 to the outer surface in the corner portions of the block 36, i.e. obtuse-angled portions 42 and acute-angled portions 43 are made larger than a distance in radial direction from the bottom 46 of the main groove 34 to the outer surface in the vicinity of a shortest side among sides of the block 36, i.e. radial distance C in the vicinity of the short side 40 in the illustrated embodiment, whereby the ground contact pressure in the obtuse-angled portion 42 and acute-angled portion 43 showing a lowest ground contact pressure is largely increased to more equalize the ground contact pressure over the whole of the block 36. In the latter case, the space for escaping rubber crushed in the obtuse-angled portion 42 is narrower than the space for escaping rubber crushed in the acute-angled portion 43, so that the ground contact pressure in the vicinity of the obtuse-angled portion 42 becomes higher than that in the vicinity of the acute-angled portion 43. For this end, according to the invention, a distance in radial direction G2 from the bottom 46 of the main groove 34 to the outer surface in the vicinity of the acute-angled portion 43 is made larger than a distance in radial direction G1 from the bottom 46 of the main groove 34 to the outer surface in the vicinity of the obtuse-angled portion 42, whereby the ground contact pressure in these corner portions is equalized. The outer surfaces of these portions in the block 36 having different heights are connected to each other in the form of a smooth curve. The term "bottom 46 of main groove 34" used herein means a curve (shown by a phantom line) connecting bottoms of a pair of the main grooves 34 arranged at both sides of the block 36 in the axial direction and in parallel with the sectional profile of the tread portion 33. When the ground contact pressure in each portion of the block 36 is equalized, even if the steering angle becomes large during the running of the tire, the concentration of side force into a portion having a high ground contact pressure is mitigated to prevent the lowering of maximum cornering force. According to the invention, the difference (mm) between the radial distance C and the radial distance D is preferably within a range of 0.5 to 2 times of a ratio (X-Y)/Y of a difference between length X of the long side 39 and length Y of the short side 40 to length Y as an absolute value. When the difference is less than 0.5 times, the equalization of ground contact pressure is insufficient, while when it exceeds 2 times, the ground contact pressure in the vicinity of the short side 40 also increases and the ground contact pressure in the vicinity of the long side 39 also decreases and hence the ground contact pressure over the whole of the block becomes non-uniform. Furthermore, the difference (mm) between the radial distance F and the radial distance D is preferably within a range of 0.1 to 0.5 times, and also the difference (mm) between the radial distance G1, G2 and the radial distance C is preferably within a range of 0.2 to 0.6. In the above illustrated embodiment, the block 36 has two kinds of sides, i.e. long side 39 and short side 40, but three or more kinds of sides may be taken. In the latter case, the distance in radial direction from the bottom 46 of the main groove 34 to the outer surface of the block 36 is made larger as the length of the side becomes short. Moreover, when the length of the side is same, the radial distance may be same. The above embodiment will be described with respect to the following experimental example. In this experiment, there were provided a comparative tire 2 having a tread pattern as shown in Fig. 6 in which all distances in radial direction from the bottom 46 of the main groove 34 to the outer surface of the block 36 in the vicinities of the long side 39 and short side 40, central surface portion 41 and obtuse-angled portion 42 and acute-angled portion 43 are the same, and a test tire 2 having a tread pattern as shown in Fig. 6 in which the difference between the radial distance C in the vicinity of the short side 40 and the radial distance D in the vicinity of long side 39 was 0.3 mm, the difference between the radial distance F in the central surface portion 41 of the block 36 and the radial distance D in the vicinity of the long side 39 was 0.3 mm, and the differences between the radial distances G1, G2 in the obtuse-angled portion 42 and the acute-angled portion 43 and the radial distance C in the vicinity of the short side 40 were 0.2 mm and 0.4 mm, respectively. These tires had a tire size of 205/60R15. In the block 36, the length X of the long side 39 was 40 mm, and the length Y of the short side 40 was 30 mm, and the interior angle of the obtuse-angled portion 42 was 120°, and the interior angle of the acute-angled portion 43 was 60°. Then, each of these tires was inflated under an internal pressure of 2 kgf/cm², and run on a drum at a speed of 30 km/hr under a load of 360 kgf, during which slip angle was variously changed to measure maximum cornering force. The measured results are shown in Table 2 and Fig. 9. As seen from Fig. 9, the maximum cornering force in the comparative tire 2 largely reduces as the slip angle becomes large (the steering angle becomes large), while the maximum cornering force in the test tire 2 does not reduce but slightly increases. Furthermore, each of these comparative tire 2 and the test tire 2 was mounted onto a passenger car and run on a winding road, during which running performances on dry road were evaluated by a feeling test of a professional driver. The results are also shown in Table 2. As seen from the results of Table 2, the running performance on dry road in the test tire are excellent as compared with those of the comparative tire. As mentioned above, according to the invention, the running performances on dry road can be improved by preventing the lowering of maximum cornering force at a large steering angle.

Claims: A pneumatic tire having a tread portion (23; 33) divided into a tread pattern by grooves (24, 25; 34, 35) wherein polygonal blocks (26; 36) are formed by arranging a plurality of main grooves (24; 34) extending in the circumferential direction and a plurality of transverse grooves (25; 35) extending non-perpendicular to said main grooves (24; 34), and wherein a distance (L) in the radial direction from the surface of said block (26; 36) to the bottom (32) of said main groove (24; 34) at a corner (30) of said block having an acute angle (γ) is greater than a distance (M) in the radial direction from the surface of said block (26; 36) to the bottom (32) of said main groove (26; 36) at a corner (31) of said block having an obtuse angle (δ). A pneumatic tire as claimed in claim 1, characterized in that a distance (N) in radial direction at a central surface portion of said block (26) is smaller than a minimum value of said radial distance (M) in the vicinity of said corner portion (31). A pneumatic tire as claimed in claim 1, characterized in that when the outer surface of said block (36) is defined by sides having different lengths (39,40), a distance (D) in radial direction from the bottom (46) of the main groove (34) to the outer surface in the vicinity of the center of the longest side (39), a distance (C) in radial direction from the bottom of the main groove to the outer surface in the vicinity of the center of the shortest side (40), and a distance in radial direction from the outer surface to the bottom of the main groove in the corner portion of said block are made larger in this order. A pneumatic tire as claimed in claim 3, characterized in that a distance (F) in radial direction from the bottom (46) of the main groove (34) to the outer surface in a central surface portion (41) of said block (36) is smaller than a minimum value of said radial direction (D) from the bottom of the main groove to the outer surface in the vicinity of the center of the longest side (39) among sides of said block. A pneumatic tire as claimed in claim 3, characterized in that when said block has three or more lengths as a side, said distance in radial direction from the bottom (46) of the main groove (34) to the outer surface is made larger as the length of the side becomes shorter.

Inventors: KAMEGAWA TATSUHIKO, NAKAJIMA YUKIO, KAMEGAWA, TATSUHIKO, NAKAJIMA, YUKIO
Applicants: BRIDGESTONE CORP, BRIDGESTONE CORPORATION
Application year: 1992
Main classification: B60C11
IPC codes: B60C11