Patent ID: 7533010

Claim:
A method for modifying an existing tread pattern of a tire, comprising the steps of: importing an original tread design of the tire from a CAD file comprising the three-dimensional shape of tread blocks that form the existing tread pattern as well as the depth of grooves between the tread blocks within the existing tread pattern, the tread blocks being arranged in rows known as ribs; processing said original tread design to establish a plurality of sampling areas and determining a void value corresponding to a volume of the grooves that separate the tread blocks at each of said sampling areas; importing a data file of a tire footprint; processing said imported tire footprint by scaling the footprint to align with the original tread design, performing edge detection to determine a footprint envelope and performing interpolation to form the footprint envelope; establishing a design space of one or more zone boundaries defining sampling areas of the original tread design which can be adjusted; establishing harmonic goals corresponding to a specified maximum and minimum tire noise; selecting an edge across each of the zone boundaries of said imported tire footprint; computing a void value corresponding to the volume of the grooves that separate the tread blocks of the imported tire footprint at each of said sampling areas crossing the edge of the footprint at the intersection of the footprint envelope and the tread pattern around the circumference of the tire; incrementally progressing the tire footprint around the tire circumference and recalculating the void values at each increment; plotting all of the void values around the circumference of the original tread design to determine the void function of the design space; generating a plurality of modified tread patterns by shifting the sampling areas of the original tread pattern; computing the void function of said sampling areas of the design space comprising the volume of the grooves between tread blocks crossing the footprint edge for each of said modified tread patterns; associating a numerical value for the void function of said sampling areas of said plurality of modified tread patterns, said numerical value of said sampling areas providing a ranking of tire noise characteristics of the original tread patterns and the modified tread patterns; sorting the plurality of modified tread patterns based on the best corresponding to the numerical values for the void functions to achieve the minimum tire noise; and displaying the sorted plurality of modified tread patterns based on the best corresponding to the numerical values for the void functions on an interface of tire equipment.