The present invention relates to a pneumatic tire and a method of manufacturing a pneumatic tire.
Tires (particularly aircraft tires) are known that are provided with balance patches on the inner surface to adjust a weight balance of the tires (Patent Literature 1). A balance patch disclosed in Patent Literature 1 has a flat sheet-like shape, and is attached to the inner surface of the tire with an adhesive. The balance patch disclosed in Patent Literature 1 is used such that the entire surface of the balance patch on one side is sticked to the inner surface of the tire, and thus has the following problems.
When a tire reused, a tread rubber of the spent tire is scraped off, and a new tread rubber is attached to the tire. The balance patch, when provided on the inner surface of the tire, is often temporarily removed and again attached to the inner surface of the tire so as to adjust the weight balance. Since the balance patch needs to be scraped off by use of a hand grinder and the like when removed, the scraping operation leads to a reduction in productivity of manufacturing retread tires. To deal with this, a technique is disclosed that provides a balance patch with a projection so as to facilitate the removal of the balance patch to save the time during the manufacture of retread tires (Patent Literature 2).
The demand for appropriate management of tires has grown according to information such as used situations or traveling distances of the tires acquired from a RFID tag (a functional component) attached to the inner surface of each tire. When both the balance patch and the RFID tag are attached to the inner surface of the tire, there is a risk of unintentionally causing damage to the RFID tag in the process of removing the balance patch during the manufacture of the retread tire. Patent Literature 2 does not mention this issue, which still needs to be improved.
To solve the conventional problems described above, the present invention provides a pneumatic tire and a method of manufacturing a pneumatic tire capable of preventing damage to a functional component in a process of removing a balance patch during the manufacture of a retread tire.
A pneumatic tire according to an aspect of the present invention includes at least one balance patch (balance patch 40) arranged on a tire inner surface (tire inner surface 30) that is a surface on an inner side of the tire (tire 10), and a functional component (functional component 50) having a communication function and arranged on the tire inner surface at a position separated at a predetermined angle (predetermined angle θ) from the at least one balance patch in a tire circumferential direction.
The present invention can prevent damage to the functional component.
Hereinafter, some embodiments according to the present invention are described with reference to the drawings. The same elements illustrated in the drawings are denoted by the same reference numerals, and overlapping explanations are not made below.
1. Configuration of Pneumatic Tire
A configuration of a pneumatic tire 10 (referred to also simply as a “tire”) according to the present embodiment is described below with reference to
As illustrated in
A tread 20, which comes into contact with a road surface, is provided on the rear surface with a balance patch 40. The balance patch 40 is attached to the surface on the inner side of the tire 10, which is a tire inner surface 30. The balance patch 40 is a member used for improving uniformity of the tire 10, and is typically used for aircraft tires.
As illustrated in
A gap between the balance patch 40 and the functional component 50 in the tire circumferential direction is longer than a length of the balance patch 40 in the tire circumferential direction, as illustrated in
The balance patch 40 and the functional component 50 are described in more detail below with reference to
As illustrated in
The RFID tag 51 includes an antenna, and an IC chip having a communication function and operated by dielectric power generated by weak radio waves received by the antenna. The RFID tag 51 stores data on used conditions and traveling distances of aircraft tires, for example. The data stored in the RFID tag 51 is read out by use of a reader/writer, and is used for the management of the aircraft tires.
As illustrated in
The functional component 50 is attached to the tire inner surface 30 after the attachment of the balance patch 40.
2. Operational Effects
The operations and effects of the tire 10 are described below.
According to the present embodiment, at least one balance patch 40 is arranged on the tire inner surface 30 that is the surface on the inner side of the tire 10. The functional component 50 having the communication function is arranged on the tire inner surface 30 at a position separated at the predetermined angle θ from the balance patch 40 in the tire circumferential direction. The predetermined angle θ is 90 degrees or greater when the single balance patch 40 is provided (refer to
The balance patch 40 provided for adjusting the weight balance of the tire 10 inevitably makes the circumference around the arrangement position slightly heavier. According to the present embodiment, the arrangement of the smaller and lighter functional component 50 than the balance patch 40 separated from each other at 90 degrees or greater in the tire circumferential direction can improve the uniformity of the tire 10.
The functional component 50 may be arranged at a position separated from the balance patch 40 at 180 degrees in the tire circumferential direction, as illustrated in
As illustrated in
As illustrated in
When the two or more balance patches are provided, as illustrated in
The tire 10 according to the present embodiment is manufactured by the process described below. At least the single balance patch 40 is attached to the tire inner surface 30, and the functional component 50 is then attached to the tire inner surface 30 at a position separated at the predetermined angle from the balance patch 40 in the circumferential direction, so as to manufacture the tire 10. If this process is reversed, in particular, if the functional component 50 is attached to the tire 10 first, and a test for examining the uniformity is executed so as to determine the position at which the balance patch 40 should be attached, the attachment position of the balance patch 40 could overlap with the position at which the RFID tag is attached. The manufacturing method according to the present embodiment can avoid such a problem, so as to not only lead the balance patch 40 and the functional component 50 to be separated from each other at a predetermined angle, but also improve the uniformity of the tire 10.
While the present invention has been described above by reference to the embodiment, it should be understood that the present invention is not intended to be limited to the descriptions and the drawings composing part of this disclosure. Various alternative embodiments, examples, and technical applications will be apparent to those skilled in the art according to this disclosure.
For example, the functional component 50 may be arranged at the lightest point of the tire 10. The term “lightest point” refers to a position at which the tire 10 has the lightest weight.
The embodiment has been illustrated above with the case in which the balance patch 40 and the functional component 50 are each arranged in the middle on the tire equator line on the rear side of the tread 20, but is not limited to this case. The balance patch 40 and the functional component 50 only need to be arranged on the tire inner surface 30, and may be arranged on the rear side of the side part, for example.
In view of the operating efficiency in the steps of attaching and removing the balance patch 40, at least a part of the balance patch 40 is preferably located on the tire equator line. Avoiding arranging the functional component 50 on the equator line in this case can further reduce a risk of unintentionally causing damage to the RFID in the step of removing the balance patch 40.
This application is based upon and claims the benefit of priority from Japanese Patent Application No. 2019-109532, filed on Jun. 12, 2019, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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2019-109532 | Jun 2019 | JP | national |
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
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PCT/JP2020/022379 | 6/5/2020 | WO | 00 |