Patent ID: 7137423

Claim:
A tire having at least one component of a rubber composition comprised of, based upon parts by weight per 100 parts by weight of elastomer (phr), (A) elastomers comprised of: (1) about 30 to about 80 phr of an amine functionalized styrene/conjugated diene copolymer elastomer which contains pendant and/or terminal amine groups selected from primary amine, secondary amine, tertiary amine and heterocyclic amine groups, wherein said conjugated diene of said copolymer is selected from at least one of isoprene and butadiene, and (2) about 20 to about 70 phr of at least one additional conjugated diene-based elastomer; and (B) about 35 to about 100 phr of particulate reinforcement comprised of (1) about 10 to about 100 phr of silanol functionalized carbon black comprised of carbon black having domains of silica on its surface wherein said silica domains contain silanol groups on their surfaces, and (2) from zero to about 90 phr of at least one of synthetic amorphous silica and carbon black without domains of silica on its surface, and mixtures thereof, wherein said synthetic amorphous silica contains hydroxyl groups on its surface, and (C) an alkoxysilane polysulfide based coupling agent having: (1) an alkoxysilane moiety reactive with (a) said silanol groups contained on the surface of said silica domains on the surface of said functionalized carbon black and said silanol groups on the surface of said synthetic amorphous silica; and (b) said amine groups of said amine functionalized styrene/conjugated diene copolymer elastomer; and (2) a polysulfide moiety interactive with polybutadiene portion of said amine functionalized styrene/conjugated diene copolymer elastomer and with said additional conjugated diene-based elastomer; wherein: (D) said carbon black which contains said domains of silica on its surface is pre-reacted with said coupling agent to form a composite thereof prior to addition to said amine functionalized styrene/conjugated diene copolymer elastomer, (E) said coupling agent is a combination of a first alkoxysilane polysulfide as a bis-(3-triethoxysilylpropyl) polysulfide having an average of from 2 to 2.6 connecting sulfur atoms in its polysulfidic bridge and a second polysulfide as a bis-(3-triethoxysilylpropyl) polysulfide having an average of from 3 to 4 connecting sulfur atoms in its polysulfidic bridge, wherein said first polysulfide is blended with said rubber composition in the absence of sulfur and sulfur vulcanization accelerator and wherein said second polysulfide is thereafter blended with said rubber composition in the presence of sulfur and at least one sulfur vulcanization accelerator, and/or (F) at least one amine group is introduced as one or more terminal amine groups at an end of the copolymer chain by copolymerizing styrene and at least one of 1,3-butadiene and isoprene monomers in an organic solvent solution in the presence of using a polymerization initiator of the general formula (IV): wherein said polymerization initiator is modified by chain extension with isoprene.