Patent ID: 7104301

Claim:
A pneumatic radial ply runflat tire having a tread; two sidewalls with shoulders; a carcass comprising one or more outer radial carcass plies, two bead regions each containing an inextensible annular bead, an innerliner, a two-part discontinuous ply with one portion contained in each sidewall and disposed between two wedge inserts of substantially equal flexibility; and one or more belts located between the tread and the outer radial carcass ply, the tire comprising; each combination of two wedge inserts with the portion of the two-part discontinuous ply is in a sidewall flex area located axially between the one or more outer radial carcass plies and the innerliner, and extending radially approximately from a location near the bead region to an approximate location near the shoulder; each of the two portions of the two-part discontinuous ply is made from two layers of cross-biased fabric; each of the cross-biased fabric layers is made of parallel-aligned cords; the parallel-aligned cords of a first fabric layer are oriented at an angle with respect to the radial direction that is approximately equal in magnitude but opposite in direction to the parallel-aligned cords of a second fabric layer of the two layers of cross-biased fabric; and the parallel-aligned cords of the respective fabric layers are oriented at angles of between 40 degrees and 65 degrees with respect to the radial direction.