JP2009126420A - Tire abrasion detection system and pneumatic tire - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a tire abrasion detection system and a pneumatic tire, dispensing with checking of the worn state of the tire in visual, also dispensing with labor for detection of an abrasion amount of the tire, and detecting the abrasion amount of the tire even during traveling. <P>SOLUTION: By inserting needles (A, B, C) on a circuit board 11 to a position of a land part 12 divided by a groove on a tire tread part from an inner surface of the tire, the circuit board 11 is fixed to a position of an inner surface of the tire of the land part 12 of the tire tread part. A conductive wire is placed in the needles (A, B, C) and is connected such that it appears from the circuit board 11, extends to a neighborhood of a distal end of the needles (A, B, C) and is returned to the circuit board 11 from there again. When the tire is worn by a much more amount than "a", the conductive wire of the needle A is cut, a detection voltage (V<SB>A</SB>) becomes High and it is detected that the abrasion amount of the tire becomes "a" or higher. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2009,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a tire wear detection system and a pneumatic tire for detecting a tire wear state.

  Conventionally, if the groove depth on the tire surface is excessively reduced, it has a great effect on the safety of vehicle travel. Therefore, the vehicle driver or the operation manager must manage the tire tread pattern groove depth. Alternatively, visually check the appearance of the slip sign provided on the tire to check the wear state of the tire, or manually put a dedicated residual groove measuring device (so-called depth gauge) on the tire groove when the vehicle is stopped, Measurement of the groove depth (remaining groove) of a tire is performed. When the tread reaches a worn state, it is replaced with a new tire.

In order to make the slip sign stand out, a technique for coloring the slip sign or embedding a bow to generate an abnormal noise is disclosed (for example, see Patent Document 1).
Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 56-120901

  However, when checking the wear state of the tire visually, if the driver neglects to check or mistakes the check method, the tire will be left even if it reaches the wear limit, which is not preferable. .

Moreover, the measurement of the depth of the groove of the tire by the depth gauge can be performed only in a situation where the vehicle is stopped, and the measurement effort is very large. Especially for large trucks with a large number of wheels, the work is very laborious as in the measurement of the tire internal pressure.
Further, in general passenger cars, the actual situation is that they are hardly implemented due to problems such as dirt caused by measurement work.

  Moreover, in the prior art shown in Patent Document 1, there are cases where the appearance of the tire is impaired, and the road surface is damaged when the tire is worn to embed the bottle, or the damage of the tire is accelerated.

  The present invention has been made in view of such problems, and the object of the present invention is not to visually check the wear state of the tire, and it takes time to detect the wear amount of the tire. In addition, another object of the present invention is to provide a tire wear detection system and a pneumatic tire that can detect the wear amount of a tire even during traveling.

  In order to achieve the above object, a tire wear detection system of the present invention includes a module that is attached to each tire of a vehicle, detects the amount of tire wear, and transmits the detected tire wear amount information to the vehicle body side, A tire wear detection system configured by a receiving device for receiving tire wear amount information sent by radio signal from the module, and an in-vehicle control device for obtaining the tire wear amount from the receiving device, The module includes a circuit board and a pointed member provided on the circuit board, and the circuit board is provided on the circuit board at a position on a tire inner surface of a land portion partitioned by a groove in a tire tread portion. The pointed member is inserted and arranged, and the pointed member extends from the circuit board to the inside and extends to the vicinity of the tip of the pointed member. Includes a connected conductive wire to return to the fine circuit board, with tire wear, by the conductive wire is cut, characterized in that it can detect the wear amount of the tire.

  In the tire wear detection system of the present invention, it is preferable that there are a plurality of pointed members provided on the circuit board, and an arbitrary difference is provided in the length of each pointed member.

  In the pneumatic tire according to the present invention, the circuit board is disposed by inserting a pointed member provided on the circuit board at a position on the tire inner surface of the land portion defined by the groove in the tire tread portion. The conductive member is connected to the inside of the pointed member so as to come out of the circuit board, extend to the vicinity of the tip of the pointed member, and return to the circuit board from there. The amount of wear of the tire can be detected by cutting the conductive wire.

  In the pneumatic tire of the present invention, it is preferable that there are a plurality of pointed members provided on the circuit board, and an arbitrary difference is provided in the length of each pointed member.

  The present invention includes a module for detecting a tire wear amount and transmitting the detected tire wear amount information to a vehicle body side in a vehicle tire, and the module is provided with a circuit board and a tip provided on the circuit board. The pointed member provided on the circuit board is inserted and arranged at the position of the tire inner surface of the land portion partitioned by the groove in the tire tread portion, and the circuit board is disposed with the tire wear. The conductive wire provided inside the pointed member is configured so that the amount of tire wear can be detected by cutting, so there is no need to visually check the tire wear state, and the amount of tire wear It is possible to detect the amount of wear of the tire even during traveling.

  Embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a tire wear detection system of the present invention. The tire wear detection system mounted on the vehicle 6 is attached to each tire 4 of the vehicle 6, detects a wear amount of the tire 4, and transmits the detected tire wear amount information to the vehicle body side, And a receiving device 1 that receives information on the amount of tire wear transmitted from the antenna of the module 3 by radio signal, and the tire wear amount acquired from the receiving device 1 for each tire mounting position. If the amount of wear is greater than the reference amount of tire compared to the amount of wear, an electronic control unit (Electric Control Unit / ECU) 5 that is an in-vehicle control device that determines and warns that the tire is at the replacement time, The display device 7 is installed on the driver's cab and displays a warning that the tire is in the replacement period together with the tire mounting position.

  The module 3 acquires tire wear amount information at a predetermined time interval and transmits it to the receiving device 1 on the vehicle body side by a radio signal. Further, the electronic control unit 5 includes a correspondence table that stores therein a unique identification code of the module 3 and a tire mounting position in association with each other. A module identification code is given to the tire wear amount information signal transmitted from the module 3, and the electronic control unit 5 determines at which position of the vehicle the position corresponding to the module identification code stored in the correspondence table in advance. A tire that issues a warning is determined by determining whether the tire is mounted.

  As shown in the partial cross-sectional view of the tire in FIG. 2, the module 3 includes a circuit board 11 and one or more needles (A) provided on the circuit board 11 and having a thin tip. , B, C) and the needle (A, B, C) provided on the circuit board 11 is inserted from the tire inner surface into the position of the land portion 12 defined by the groove in the tire tread portion. The circuit board 11 is disposed at a position on the tire inner surface of the land portion 12 of the tire tread portion. In FIG. 2, three needles (A, B, C) are provided on the circuit board 11. When there are a plurality of needles, the lengths of the needles provide an arbitrary difference, and the lengths of the needles that pierce the land portion 12 differ.

FIG. 3 is an electric circuit diagram of the inside of the needle and the circuit board portion. FIG. 3 shows a state when the needle provided on the circuit board is inserted into the land portion of the tire tread portion from the tire inner surface. The needle (A, B, C) has an electrically conductive wire (conductive wire) inside, and the conductive wire exits from the circuit board 11 and the tip of the needle (A, B, C). It is connected so as to extend to the vicinity and return to the circuit board 11 from there. For example, one side of this conductive wire is electrically connected to GND, and the other side is connected to a battery (+ power supply) via resistors (R _A , R _B , R _C ). The GND side of the connected resistor is captured as a detection voltage (V _A , V _B , V _C ). In FIG. 3, a, b, and c are distances from the tread surface when the tire is manufactured (when not in use).

FIG. 4 is a schematic block diagram of an electric circuit device mounted on a circuit board. The circuit board 11 is connected to the GND side of the resistance (R _A , R _B , R _C ) of the needle (A, B, C), and acquires the detection voltage (V _A , V _B , V _C ). An acquisition unit 13, a controller 15, a transmitter 16 that converts an output signal from the controller 15 into a transmission signal from the antenna 17, and a battery (+ power source) 19 that supplies a voltage to each unit of the module 3 are mounted. The controller 15 includes a rewritable ROM (for example, EPROM) 21 and a control unit 23. In the rewritable ROM 21, the identification code of the module 3 is stored.

When the tire tread is hardly worn and the tire has a sufficient groove depth, all the detection voltages (V _A , V _B , V _C ) are Low. However, when the tire wears more than a, the conductive wire of the needle A is cut, the detection voltage (V _A ) becomes High, and it is detected that the amount of wear of the tire is greater than or equal to a. Similarly, when the tire wears more than b, the conductive wire of the needle B is cut, the detection voltage (V _B ) becomes High, and it is detected that the amount of wear of the tire is greater than or equal to b. In addition, it is possible to detect the amount of wear more finely as the number of needles increases.

The controller 23 provided in the controller 15 controls the detection voltage acquisition unit 13 to take in the detection voltages (V _A , V _B , V _C ) from the detection voltage acquisition unit 13 at predetermined time intervals and store them in the ROM 21 in advance. The identification code of the module 3 is output to the transmitter 16 at predetermined time intervals together with the wear amount information. That is, when all the detection voltages (V _A , V _B , V _C ) are Low, the identification code of the module 3 is output to the transmitter 16 together with the information indicating that the wear amount is zero, and the detection voltage (V _A ) is When it becomes High, the identification code of the module 3 is output to the transmitter 16 together with the information of the wear amount a, and when the detection voltage (V _B ) becomes High, the identification code of the module 3 is changed to the wear amount. Together with the information of b, it is output to the transmitter 16. The transmitter 16 outputs the tire wear amount information and the module 3 identification code to the outside of the tire.

  The receiving device 1 provided in the vehicle 6 receives tire wear amount information and an identification code of the module 3 which are sent from the antenna of the module 3 by radio signals. The electronic control unit 5 acquires the tire wear amount information and the identification code of the module 3 from the receiving device 1, compares the acquired tire wear amount with the reference tire wear amount, and if the tire wear amount is larger than the reference tire wear amount. The tire is determined to be replaced, and it is determined at which position of the vehicle the tire is mounted depending on whether or not the acquired module 3 identification code matches the module identification code stored in the correspondence table in advance. The display device 7 installed in the cab on the vehicle body side displays the tire replacement position and the tire replacement timing.

In the above-described embodiment, the receiving device 1 and the electronic control device 5 are provided separately. However, the receiving device 1 and the electronic control device 5 may be integrated.
In addition, a warning that the tire is at the replacement time is displayed on the display device 7 installed in the cab on the vehicle body side together with the tire mounting position, but the tire is at the replacement time together with the tire mounting position. This warning may be notified by voice.

It is a block diagram of the tire wear detection system of the present invention. It is a partial sectional view of a tire. It is an electric circuit diagram of the inside of a needle | hook and a circuit board part. It is a schematic block diagram of the electric circuit device mounted on a circuit board.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Receiver 3 Module 4 Tire 5 Electronic controller 6 Vehicle 7 Display device 11 Circuit board 12 Land part 13 Detection voltage acquisition part 15 Controller 17 Antenna 16 Transmitter 19 Battery 21 ROM
23 Control unit

Claims (4)

A module that is attached to a vehicle tire and detects the amount of tire wear and transmits the detected tire wear amount information to the vehicle body side, and a tire wear amount information that is installed on the vehicle body side and is transmitted by radio signal from the module A tire wear detection system configured by a receiving device that receives the tire wear amount from the receiving device,
The module is composed of a circuit board and a pointed member provided on the circuit board,
The circuit board is disposed by inserting a pointed member provided on the circuit board at a position of a tire inner surface of a land portion partitioned by a groove in a tire tread portion,
The pointed member is provided with a conductive wire connected to return from the circuit board to the vicinity of the tip of the pointed member and return to the circuit board from there.
A tire wear detection system capable of detecting a wear amount of a tire by cutting the conductive wire as the tire is worn.   The tire wear detection system according to claim 1, wherein there are a plurality of pointed members provided on the circuit board, and an arbitrary difference is provided in the length of each pointed member. The circuit board is disposed by inserting a pointed member provided on the circuit board at the position of the tire inner surface of the land portion partitioned by the groove in the tire tread portion,
Inside the pointed member, it is provided with a conductive wire that is connected to return from the circuit board, extends to the vicinity of the tip of the pointed member, and then returns to the circuit board from there.
A pneumatic tire characterized in that the wear amount of the tire can be detected by cutting the conductive wire as the tire is worn.   The pneumatic tire according to claim 3, wherein there are a plurality of pointed members provided on the circuit board, and an arbitrary difference is provided in the length of each pointed member.

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