The Goodyear & Tire Rubber Company

Other

Jin-Shy Steve Gau

Cheng-Hsiung Lin

Junling Zhao

Thulasiram Gobinath

Arun Kumar Byatarayanapura Gopala

Peter Jung-min Suh

James Earl Koerner

Michael William Kestner

Jeffrey McKay West

Andrew Peter Killmeyer

Frank George Licari

A tire includes a pair of sidewalls extending from a respective bead area to a tread. The tread is formed with a plurality of tread elements and a radially outer surface. A sensor unit is mounted to the tire and includes a pair of electrical contacts. The tread wear sensor plug includes a cylindrical projection extending through an opening formed in one of the tread elements, a flange, and a wire including proximal ends disposed in the flange and a distal end near a radially outer surface of the projection. An electrical circuit is formed by each proximal end of the wire electrically contacting a respective one of the sensor unit electrical contacts. When the tread element and the cylindrical projection wear down to the distal end of the wire, the wire and the circuit break. A notice is transmitted by the sensor unit when the circuit breaks.

Tire with tread wear sensor plug

An air maintenance tire system is provided. The tire includes a pair of sidewalls, in which each one of the sidewalls extends from a respective bead area to a crown of the tire. The air maintenance tire includes an annular groove formed in a selected one of the tire sidewalls. The groove is formed with an open end at an outer surface of the tire sidewall and a closed end opposite the open end. The open end is formed with an outward radial taper and the groove is formed with at least one increased diameter feature. An air tube of a peristaltic pump assembly is received in the groove.

Air maintenance tire

A system is used with a pneumatic tire mounted on a wheel rim to keep a tire cavity of the pneumatic tire from becoming underinflated from a set pressure. The first system includes a plurality of pumps attached circumferentially to the wheel rim, each pump having a piston for inflating the tire cavity and a weight for moving the piston, and a stop mechanism for each pump, the stop mechanism including a stop piston, a stop cylinder, a first spring, and a second spring, when air pressure in the tire cavity reaches the set pressure, the set pressure overcomes a force of the first spring against the stop piston and moves the stop piston into a stopping engagement with the weight, when air pressure in the tire cavity is below the set pressure, the second spring overcomes the force of the first spring and moves the stop piston away from the weight.

System for an air maintenance tire assembly

An air maintenance tire assembly includes a tire having a tire cavity bounded by first and second sidewalls extending to a tire tread region and air pumping means for generating pressurized air for maintaining air pressure within the tire cavity at a preset pressure level. The air pumping means includes an upper mounting plate fixed to a vehicle rim, a lower mounting plate fixed to the rim and diametrically opposed to the upper mounting plate, a dynamic mass pivotally attached to the upper mounting plate at a first end of the dynamic mass, and a pump fixed to the lower mounting plate and pivotally attached to a second end of the dynamic mass.

Air maintenance pump

Growing community of inventors

Hudson, OH, United States of America

Jin-Shy Steve Gau