Pirelli Tyre S.p.a.

Gabriele Pece

Vincenzo Boffa

Valeriano Ballardini

Giuseppe Casadio Tozzi

Bartolomeo Montrucchio

Riccardo Antoj

Giovanni Simonato

Renato Ferrero

A method, and related apparatus, for controlling tyres in a production line, includes: predisposing a tyre to be controlled; elastically deforming a lateral wall portion of the tyre by imparting a compression force on an outer contact surface of the lateral wall portion, the compression force having axial direction and sense directed toward the middle line plane; illuminating an inner and/or outer surface of the lateral wall portion and detecting an image of the illuminated surface; generating a control signal representative of the detected image; and analyzing the control signal in order to detect the possible presence of flaws on the lateral wall portion.

Method and apparatus for controlling tyres in a tyre production line

An apparatus for controlling tires includes a support plane configured for receiving a tire with axial middle line plane parallel to the support plane, defining an abutted lateral portion and a free lateral portion arranged at a specific height with respect to the support plane. A thrust element is configured for applying, to a measurement surface of the free lateral portion, a force directed toward the support plane. A positioning actuator is operatively associated with the thrust element and configured for moving the thrust element with at least one motion component perpendicular to a rotation axis of the tire. The apparatus also includes devices for modifying the angular position of the measurement surface. A control unit is programmed for detecting a first value of output data at each position of the measurement surface as a function of a first value of input data maintained substantially constant along at least one complete rotation of the measurement surface around the rotation axis and for detecting a second value of the output data at each position of the measurement surface. The second value of the output data corresponds with a second value of the input data maintained substantially constant along at least one complete rotation of the measurement surface. The control unit includes a module programmed for calculating, at each position of the measurement surface, a difference between the second value of the output data and the first value of the output data.

Method and apparatus for controlling tyres

Growing community of inventors

Milan, Italy

Gabriele Pece