Tire with welded thermoplastic constituent members

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9623706-B2
Application number	US-201214344846-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 25, 2012
Priority date	Sep 26, 2011
Publication date	Apr 18, 2017
Grant date	Apr 18, 2017

Abstract

It is ensured the strength of a welded section in a tire that is configured by welding tire constituent members formed of a thermoplastic material. A tire has a first welded portion, in which one section of one tire constituent member and one section of another tire constituent member are both melted and welded, and a second welded portion, which is formed by welding a welding-use thermoplastic material to the surface of the first welded portion, whereby the strength of the joint section is ensured.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A tire comprising:
one tire constituent member and another tire constituent member that are formed of a thermoplastic material, the one tire constituent member forming one side of the tire across the tire equatorial plane, and the other tire constituent member forming the other side of the tire across the tire equatorial plane;
a first welded portion that is disposed on the tire equatorial plane and on a tire inner surface side formed by the one tire constituent member and the other tire constituent member, the tire inner surface side of the first welded portion, in which one section of the one tire constituent member and one section of the other tire constituent member are provided, being convex, and a tire outer surface side of the first welded portion being concave, the convex and concave shapes resulting from the welding of the first welded portion; and
a second welded portion that is disposed on the tire equatorial plane and on the tire outer surface side, the second welded portion being formed by circumferentially extruding a welding-use thermoplastic material at the surface of the concave section of the first welded portion, and
wherein the first welded portion and the second welded portion have bilaterally symmetrical shapes across the tire equatorial plane, respectively.

2. The tire according to claim 1 , wherein the thermoplastic material forming the one tire constituent member and the other tire constituent member and the welding-use thermoplastic material are the same material.

3. The tire according to claim 1 , wherein the tire constituent members have, on tire radial direction inner sides, bead portions that contact bead seats and rim flanges of a rim, and
annular bead cores are embedded in the bead portions.

4. The tire according to claim 3 , wherein the seal portions are disposed on the sections that contact the rim, the seal portions comprising a rubber whose sealability is superior to that of the thermoplastic material.

5. The tire according to claim 1 , wherein a reinforcement layer formed by spirally winding a cord whose stiffness is higher than that of the thermoplastic material is disposed on the outer peripheral portion of the tire constituent members.

6. The tire according to claim 1 , wherein a tread rubber layer comprising a rubber whose wear resistance is superior to that of the thermoplastic material is disposed on the tire constituent members on the section that contacts the road surface, and
the tread rubber layer covers the first welded portion and the second welded portion.

Assignees

• Bridgestone Corp

Inventors

• Kouno Yoshihide
• Kon Seiji
• Hasegawa Keiichi

Classifications

• B29D30/08

  Building tyres · CPC title

• B29D2030/086

  Building the tyre carcass by combining two or more sub-assemblies, e.g. two half-carcasses · CPC title

• B60C5/007 Primary

  made from other material than rubber · CPC title

• B29D30/0061

  Accessories, details or auxiliary operations not otherwise provided for · CPC title

• B60C1/00

  Tyres characterised by the chemical composition or the physical arrangement or mixture of the composition · CPC title