Patent ID: 6843290

Claim:
A tire comprising a tread having a tread pattern having a preferred rotation direction R, said tread pattern being defined by a plurality of grooves of generally circumferential orientation and by a plurality of grooves of generally transverse orientation, said grooves delimiting a plurality of blocks arranged in at least three rows of generally circumferential orientation, the axially outermost rows defining the edges of the tread enclosing at least one intermediate row of blocks, each block being delimited by a contact face, front and rear faces and lateral faces, the front and rear faces intersecting the contact face along front and rear contact lines, respectively, there being defined for each block: a block length L in the longitudinal direction of the tread as being the maximum distance separating points of the front contact line from the rear contact line of said block, said points being taken in pairs in the same longitudinal section plane; a complementary volume V between the contact face and the enveloping surface of a virtual cylinder C, C′ having an axis coincident with the axis of rotation of the tire equipped with the tread, said virtual cylinder being tangent to said contact face, the complementary volume V being further delimited by at least one of a continuation of the front face and a continuation of the rear face, and by respective continuations of the lateral faces; a center of gravity G of the complementary volume V, said center being situated at a distance D G from the mid-plane M, M′ of the block, said plane M, M′ dividing said block into two substantially equal volumes; wherein a profile of the contact face, as viewed in a sectional plane extending through the row of blocks perpendicularly to the rotation axis passes through a point situated at a height which, relative to a bottom of the grooves, is lower than respective heights where the front and rear contact lines intersect the sectional plane, and wherein: for each of the blocks of the edges of the tread, the distance D G is not zero and negative and less, in terms of absolute value, than a third of the length L; and for each of the blocks of the intermediate rows, the distance D G is not zero and positive and less, in terms of absolute value, than a third of the length L, wherein, by convention, the distance D G is positive when the center of gravity G is in front of the mid-plane M, M′ of the block in question, such that the direction of the displacement which causes the mid-plane M, M′ to pass the point of the center of gravity G is identical to the preferred direction of rotation R of the tire.