Quote:
Originally Posted by Crazyrabbit
It occurred to me today that I might lower the rolling resistance of my tires by cutting the tread blocks across the tread so that they were, by say, 1/2 or 1/3 as long, along the direction of travel. By doing this, I submit that the work of bending the tread as the tire enters and leaves the contact with the pavement would be reduced. I would propose to cut them to the depth of the tread. I think this would accelerate the wear rate during acceleration and braking, but then I am no tire engineer. I know we have actual tire engineers on this site, what do you guys think?......
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The stiffness of the tread is very minor compared to the stiffness of the belt, so anything done to the tread stiffness would have a minor effect. If anything, you'd want to increase the stiffness of the tread in the longitudinal direction.
But you've proposed removing tread rubber and that would have a positive affect. Better would be to remove tread rubber along the grooves - perhaps cutting off the corners.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Frank Lee
........I've sometimes wondered if filling inbetween the tread blocks with silicone rubber or ? would reduce r.r....?
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That would be adding mass - which would not be good. If you are thinking that you would be reducing the movement of the tread elements as they move through the footprint - that is a very minor affect as well and it's the belt that pretty much controls that.