Abstract:
A rubber article having an indicium on the surface of said article, characterized by said indicium having a surface of a first finish, the surface of said article substantially surrounds said indicium having a second finish which is different from said first finish such that a readily visual distinguishable appearance can be seen between the surface of said indicium and the surface substantially surrounding said indicium.
Abstract:
A directional pneumatic tire having improved wet traction is provided. The tread is divided into two annular portions, each annular portion comprising a plurality of block elements separated by lateral grooves. The block elements extend continuously from a shoulder area of the tire to a mid portion of the tread. The block elements have substantially circumferentially aligned notches in leading and trailing groove walls, wherein each notch is defined laterally by a narrow bridge of rubber. The tread has curved lateral grooves to direct water from the footprint to the shoulder area of the tire to help prevent hydroplaning. The pitch boundaries between annular portions of block elements may be skewed. The curved lateral grooves and the skewing reduce noise properties of the tire.
Abstract:
Metallic particles are suspended in a solution that contains diene rubber solids and a sulfur rubber vulcanization accelerator dissolved therein. The coating material is substantially free of carbon black and free sulfur. The accelerator scavenges sulfur from an already vulcanized rubber substrate to auto-vulcanize the rubber solids and thereby secure the metallic particles in a coating on a rubber article.
Abstract:
Noise generated by load supporting elements of an apparatus (e.g., tread of a tire) having a plurality of repeating design cycles is spread over a broad frequency spectrum. This is accomplished by designing load bearing elements in accordance with the following procedure.First, determining the maximum number of repeating design cycles which may be placed about the apparatus;Second, selecting a maximum pitch ratio;Third, determining the appropriate number of harmonic segments into which the apparatus can be divided;Fourth, determining the size of each of the harmonic segments and the number of design cycles for each of the harmonic segments;Fifth, arranging the various design cycles in each of the harmonic segments so that the wave length of the predominant modulation frequency of the segment corresponds to the fundamental length of that segment.