The development of a smart tire-curing process

The process of curing a pneumatic tire is to apply heat energy from the exterior mold parts and the internal curing bladder in order to drive the chemical process of vulcanization. A challenge for the industry is to provide a curing process that provides a uniform amount of energy to the inherently non-uniform cross section of a tire. Tire constituents which do not achieve the proper state of cure (SOC) may not meet design requirements. Therefore an optimized cure insures superior tire compound properties and an improved product quality.; This project focuses on the optimization of the overall SOC of the pneumatic tire by optimizing the curing process and the geometry of the tire for better heat transfer.; First, a method is presented for the use of a 2-D axi-symmetric FEA model of the curing mechanism (tire/mold/bladder) as a tool to determine the needed design changes. Also, a method is presented for the use of 3-D FEA analysis and thermocouple testing to determine the SOC for each zone of the tire, as well as detailed features in the tire tread. From the detailed knowledge of these cold zones of the tire, different tread apertures are proposed to enhance heat transfer into these zones in order to provide a more optimum cure. A concept of heat transfer pins is developed as an efficient and practical means of accomplishing this optimized cure state.; In addition, these new tread geometries are evaluated with respect to some basic tire tread performance parameters to understand their impact on the performance of the tire.; Using 3-D FEA, these new combinations of tread apertures are analyzed and predictions are made of a more uniform SOC for all zones of the tire and a reduced cure time. Reductions of 15% in cure time are demonstrated.