Adhesive bonding and miscellaneous chemical manufacture – Methods – Surface bonding and/or assembly therefor
Reexamination Certificate
1999-02-17
2001-08-28
Knable, Geoffrey L. (Department: 1733)
Adhesive bonding and miscellaneous chemical manufacture
Methods
Surface bonding and/or assembly therefor
C156S123000, C156S199000, C156S243000, C156S406400, C156S437000, C156S554000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06280548
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to a method and apparatus for building a laminate
10
A and in forming a subassembly
10
for a pneumatic tire from unreinforced tire components.
Historically, the pneumatic tire has been fabricated as a laminate structure of generally toroidal shape having beads, a tread, belt reinforcement and a carcass. The tire is made of rubber, fabric, and steel. The manufacturing technologies employed for the most part involve assembling the many tire components from flat strips or sheets of material. Each component is placed on a building drum and cut to length such that the ends of a component meet or overlap creating a splice.
In the first stage of assembly the carcass would include one or more plies, and a pair of sidewalls, a pair of apexes, an innerliner (for a tubeless tire), a pair of chafers and perhaps a pair of gum shoulder strips. Annular bead cores can be added during this first stage of tire building, and the ply or plies can be turned around the bead cores to form the “ply turnups.”
The carcass components (excluding the bead cores) would be either “butt spliced” or “lap spliced.” A butt splice has the component ends joined but not overlapped, a lap splice has overlapping ends.
This intermediate article of manufacture would be cylindrically formed at this point in the first stage of assembly. The cylindrical carcass is expanded into a toroidal shape after completion of the first-stage of tire building. Reinforcing belts and the tread are added to the intermediate article during a second stage of tire manufacture, which can occur using the same building drum or work station or at a separate shaping station.
During the expansion of the carcass, tensile stresses are imposed on the spliced and uncured components of the tire carcass.
In the case of automobile or light truck tires, lap splices were preferred because the splice remained intact whereas butt splices would tend to open or fail. Even with the good adhesion of the lap splice the cords adjacent the splice tended to be stretched compensating for the overlapped two layers of cords at the splice. This localized stretching creates a non-uniformity that is readily visible under x-ray, ultrasonic display or by physically cutting the tire and visually inspecting it.
The tire designer, in order to prevent the creation of tire uniformity problems has historically insured that the splices of the various layers of components were not circumferentially aligned. This non-alignment of splice joints was believed to improve the carcass overall durability and uniformity, as measured by the amount of force variation and the balance of the tire. Tire engineers also have believed that tire uniformity could be improved if these discontinuities were deliberately circumferentially spaced around the carcass. This meant that each component had to be applied to the ply at the tire building station where each component was cut and spliced in a spaced order.
A U.S. patent issued in 1917 taught the use of an apparatus to assemble strips to form a tire tread subassembly. U.S. Pat. No. 1,353,934 issued in 1917 teaches in order to create the strips of proper width and location the components were required to be trimmed at the apparatus. This tread subassembly included a cord reinforced belt and optionally could include a pair of sidewalls. This method of assembly required the sidewalls to be turned down upon assembly to a tire casing which one skilled in the art would readily appreciate is very difficult in that the unreinforced sidewall cannot conform to the compressive stresses of being turned radially inward without a high likelihood of localized buckling. This created tremendous non-uniformities in the tire and therefore has been heretofore abandoned as a viable method of tire assembly.
The subject matter of this patent application completely reverses this conventional wisdom as it relates to tire subassembly construction. The tire subassembly is manufactured with numerous unreinforced components being formed and adhered to a conveying carrier member or tire component without requiring any secondary trimming thus forming a laminate structure which can be wound onto rolls or spools for subsequent use at the tire building station. The laminate can then be cut using a novel cutting technique which results in a single splice line. The tire subassembly built according to the present invention can actually decrease the tire building costs while reducing splice-related non-uniformities.
In one embodiment of the invention,the subject matter of this patent application completely reverses this conventional wisdom as it relates to carcass construction. The carcass is manufactured with numerous components being formed and adhered to a conveying ply thus forming a laminate structure which can be wound onto rolls or spools for subsequent use at the tire building station. The laminate can then be cut using a novel cutting technique which results in a single splice line. The tire carcass built according to the present invention can actually increase the tire burst strength while reducing splice-related non-uniformities.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
A method and apparatus
200
for building a laminate
10
A from an assembly of unreinforced tire components suitable in forming a subassembly
10
for a pneumatic tire is disclosed. As used in this application, unreinforced means having no parallel cord reinforcement as is common in belts and plies.
The method in its simplest to explain form has the steps of providing an apparatus having a plurality of calender rollers, the apparatus being capable of simultaneously forming, positioning, attaching and conveying a plurality of continuous strips of elastomeric tire components each formed component having a predetermined cross-sectional profile formed by a component forming depression on a calender roller; and activating the apparatus simultaneously forming the plurality of continuous strips of elastomeric tire components and positioning and attaching each formed strip of tire components from the component forming depression of the calender roller to adjacent strips of tire components or a conveyor at the location where each formed strip of elastomeric components is formed as they are conveyed thus forming a laminate of unreinforced tire components, each component having a predetermined cross sectional profile formed by a component forming depression on a calender roller, suitable for use as a subassembly for a pneumatic tire.
The method of building this laminate
10
A may have the following steps: conveying a carrier member
20
, the carrier member
20
having a width (W
c
), the width being measured at an angle perpendicular relative to the direction of conveyance; forming one or more of continuous strips of elastomeric tire components, the strips of tire components having predetermined cross sections, by an apparatus having a plurality of calender rollers, each formed component having a predetermined cross sectional profile formed by a component forming depression on a calender roller; and as the components are formed simultaneously attaching each of continuous strips of tire components from the component forming depresion or depressions of the calender roller to the carrier member or to another previously attached tire component at a precise lateral location while the carrier member and previously attached components are being conveyed, to form a laminate
10
A having a width (W) perpendicular to the direction of conveyance.
The method preferably may also include the steps of tensioning the laminate
10
A by winding the laminate directly onto a roll
210
; cutting the laminate
10
A parallel to the width (W) when a predetermined length of laminate
10
A is wound into the roll
210
; transporting the roll
210
of laminate
10
A to a tire building drum work station; and cutting the laminate
10
A to a predetermined length; and applying the laminate
10
A to a tire building drum.
The method step of applying the plurality of continuous strips of tire components also prefera
Benzing, II James Alfred
Downing Daniel Ray
Head William James
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