How do tire treads work

Connect with us. Advertise Subscribe Contact Us. By Fardad Niknam. H ave you ever wondered about the science behind a tread pattern? Tread Pattern Performance Expectations While tread patterns have a major role in the performance of each and every tire, engineers mainly focus on dry braking, noise, wet braking, handling, PRAT Ply Steer Residual Aligning Torque , irregular wear, and snow and ice traction in regards to the design of a tread pattern.

The challenge when designing a tire is managing the trade-offs, where improvement of one performance attribute will result in a performance reduction in another area. Noise and irregular wear are the other two main tire attributes that should be considered during tread pattern development.

As we discussed earlier, tread patterns also play an important part in tire handling. In modern days with the availability of super computers, tire engineers are able to develop tread patterns, model the tire and predict the performance, identifying which will provide the best overall performance and safety before ordering any tooling. Fardad Niknam is Yokohama Tire Corp. In this article: Fardad Niknam , tire technology , tire techs , traction. Click to comment.

Watch a webinar for free on-demand! Listen to the latest episode on "What's Treading". As the depth of tire treads affects your safety on the wet roadways, always do a car check-up once in a while and visit a garage for professional repair services.

Now you probably can answer the question: How do tire treads work?. We hope you know how important it is to have proper tire maintenance. How Do Tire Treads Work? By David Barlow. Last Updated: July 17, Treads have lots of smaller grooves called, you guessed it, sipes. These work to disperse that remaining thin layer of water on your tyres to provide you with better traction.

Tyre Advice - December 10 Which type of 4WD tyre should I get? What size tyres will fit my vehicle? When do I need new tyres? What should my tyre pressure be? How can I tell what size my Tyres are? Where is my vehicle placard? For this reason, a good all-season or winter tire is highly likely to have a directional tread pattern.

The extra traction is also useful for performance tires on high-performance vehicles. The point to remember about directional patterns, however, is that tire rotation becomes a bit more complicated. They can only be rotated vertically — for example, from the front of the car to the back — otherwise, the pattern will be oriented in the wrong direction when fitted to a wheel on the other side of the vehicle.

That would render the benefits of the tire tread useless. You can keep track of the correct orientation using the arrow indicator printed on the sidewall of the tire. It's in the same direction as the pattern, pointing in the required direction of travel.

A tire with an asymmetric pattern features two separate tread designs, one on the inner half and another on the outer half of the tire. It looks unusual, but both halves serve a distinct purpose. The inner tire tread is responsible for water displacement and protection against aquaplaning hydroplaning. The outer tire tread has rigid tread blocks for higher lateral stiffness, which provides high grip when cornering and driving on dry surfaces, and quieter interior noise.

This combination of features makes asymmetrical tires especially popular for use on ultra-high-performance cars. However, just like a directional tire pattern, care must be taken with tire rotation. Vertical rotation between front and back are the options here. Indicators on the sidewall will guide correct fitting. When buying new tires, avoid mixing different types, sizes, or brands of tire on a single vehicle.

For best results, source the identical make and model of tire to the ones you already have on your wheels, to maintain optimal performance characteristics. Another thing to keep in mind when replacing tires ; replacing a pair of tires is safer than replacing just a single tire. The newest tires should be fit on the rear axle, and partially worn tires to the front axle.