Design of bionic tire tread compounds with pit structures and the improvement mechanism of wear and wet grip resistance

Abstract Wear resistance and wet grip resistance are the main properties of tires, but they are often contradictory and difficult to synergize. In this paper, drawing on the bionics concept, the bionic topography of the pits was introduced into the design of the tread rubber structure, and the synergistic improvement mechanism of the tire tread rubber with the bionic pit structures was explored. The overall performance improvement of tread compounds provided a new approach. The research showed that the designed high wear resistance tire tread compounds W2 had the best wear resistance, and the high wet grip resistance tire tread compounds S3 had the best‐wet grip resistance. When the diameter of the bionic unit was 2.5 mm and the pit number was 6, the wear resistance rate of the sample was the highest (about 11.86%), and the wear amount was 70.6; the maximum wet friction coefficient of the sample sliding on the sandpaper surface and the smooth glass surface was 0.834 and 0.71, the corresponding wet grip resistance improvement rates were also 11.89% and 12.34%, respectively. Experiments have proved that the tire tread compounds with the bionic pit structures composed of W2S3 can effectively synergistically improve wet grip resistance and wear resistance.