Plastic article or earthenware shaping or treating: apparatus – Reshaping – resizing or vulcanizing means for tire – tire... – Toroidal or annular female shaping means and coacting means...
Reexamination Certificate
1999-03-12
2001-06-26
Mackey, James P. (Department: 1722)
Plastic article or earthenware shaping or treating: apparatus
Reshaping, resizing or vulcanizing means for tire, tire...
Toroidal or annular female shaping means and coacting means...
C425S047000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06250901
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vulcanizing mold for pneumatic tires and, in particular, to a segmented mold including a plurality of tread mold pieces which are disposed in annular arrangement.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the tire industry, segmented molds are widely used for manufacturing pneumatic tires, in particular high performance radial tires. In order to achieve a satisfactory manufacturing productivity of tires, however, known segmented mold requires further improvement. Specifically, besides a complicated structure arising from a large number of associated components and a high initial cost, there is a serious a problem that substantial labor and time are required for manually assembling or disassembling the mold when, for example, changeover is to be effected in respect of size or specification of tires to be manufactured. Moreover, because the assembly or disassembly of the segmented mold is manually carried out within the vulcanizing machine, it is often necessary to wait the required operations until the vulcanizing machine has been sufficiently cooled down, which involves considerable loss time and waste of the heat energy which had been supplied to the vulcanizing machine and used for previous vulcanizing steps.
DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION
It is therefore a primary object of the present invention to provide an improved segmented mold which is essentially free from the above-mentioned drawbacks.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an improved segmented mold which can be assembled or disassembled within a significantly reduced time, making it possible to perform the changeover in size or specification of the tires to be produced by the vulcanizing machine and thereby achieving a marked improvement in the manufacturing productivity.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide an improved segmented mold in which the components of the mold are positioned and centered with respect to each other in a positive and facilitated manner, so as to allow production of high performance tires with an improved quality in terms of dimensional accuracy.
These and other objects and functions are advantageously achieved by the segmented mold according to the present invention, which includes a plurality of segmented tread mold pieces for forming an outer contour of a tire tread portion, a plurality of connector segments detachably connected to outer peripheral surfaces of the respective tread mold pieces, and a container ring having a tapered surface which is slidably engaged with tapered portions of the connector segments such that an axial movement of the container ring causes radial movement of each tread mold piece.
The novel and unique features of the present invention reside in that the connector segments are detachably connected to the respective tread mold pieces, by engagement of first latch members of the connector segments with corresponding second latch members of the tread mold pieces. Furthermore, an actuating means serve to cause a relative movement between the first and second latch members so that the first and second latch members are engaged with each other upon relative movement of the first and second latch members in a predetermined direction thereby connecting the connector segments to the tread mold pieces, and the first and second latch members are disengaged from each other upon relative movement of the first and second latch members in an opposite direction thereby disconnecting the connector segments from the tread mold pieces.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4883415 (1989-11-01), Salvadori
patent: 5234326 (1993-08-01), Galli et al.
patent: 24 20 404 (1975-11-01), None
Bridgestone Corporation
Mackey James P.
Oliff & Berridg,e PLC
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