Pirelli has launched its latest all-season tyre named the Cinturato All Season SF2. According to the manufacturer, the Pirelli Cinturato All season SF2 is designed to provide best-in-class performance in winter conditions as well as in summer conditions. The tyre maker says this is possible thanks to the new compound and tread pattern that adapts to different temperatures.
In winter conditions, the grooves on the tread pattern of the Pirelli Cinturato All season SF2 stay open to provide better traction on snow, and they close up under braking in wet and dry conditions, firming up the tread blocks and generating increased grip against the road surface.
Pierangelo Misani, senior vice president of R&D and cyber at Pirelli explains the functioning: "To provide grip when we are driving in the snow, a tire has to cut the snow surface and trap the snow itself to provide the grip, because snow with snow has higher grip than rubber with snow. From this point of view, the sipes of typical winter tires are fundamental. This is the same for all-season tires. In the SF2 you will see that the sipes are linear, not zigzagged like a typical winter tire. This is because they also have to work in the summer.
"A typical contact area is no bigger than four credit cards," he continued. "To cut the snow in this area, we have, believe it or not, 3.8m of edges. And the sipes also have a 3D design because they have to trap the snow in the winter, in low-temperature conditions, to provide grip. But as soon as it comes to warmer conditions, as soon as we apply torque, or steer, the walls of the 3D sipes tend to lean against each other and close. In closing, they increase the block stiffness, and improve the grip and stability."
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Pirelli stated that the new compound changes its character based on the temperature. The adaptability of the tyre is fascinating since the tyre adapts to cold and wet conditions by making the tyre compound soft whereas in dry conditions it becomes rigid and stable. This adaptability is achieved thanks to the careful blending of the components of the tyre compound. According to the manufacturer, it includes biphasic polymeric materials chemically linked by silica particles - a concept that Pirelli claims also delivers lower rolling resistance, for lower fuel consumption or a longer battery range.
Misani says that the tyrehas this function of adaptability thanks to the modern digital tech and tools. It would have not been possible without them.
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"The development of an all-season tire is one of the most challenging tasks for R&D, due to the need to fulfill the widest spectrum of usage. The virtual approach that we have used extensively when developing this product has allowed us to study the movement and the behaviour of the tread pattern in extreme detail. That was the only way to achieve one of the most challenging targets we had: 50% increase in mileage over the previous iteration."
He noted that optimization of the tread blocks was one area that particularly benefited from this design approach.
"The tread blocks at the edge of the contact patch have to accelerate suddenly, because leaving the contact patch and going into free-rolling, they increase their speed. It's there that wear happens. Thanks to virtualization, we have been able to control the deformation of the single elements in that critical area in a way that reduces the total energy dissipation by about 13percent," he concluded.
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