Axis 9 Bounding Box Height 8 Overall Length 10 All Leg Lengths 10 All Leg Angles 10 All Leg

To produce thin grooves in the tread portion of tires, tire molds contain a multitude of sipes, which are thin metal inserts that project into the tread rubber during molding and curing. The geometric design and location of sipes is based on tire performance as well as appearance. A completèfamily' of tires, typically consisting of a dozen or more tire sizes with similar tread designs, will require thousands of sipes, many of which have very similar geometry. Sipe consolidation can reduce the number of unique sipes required by an order of magnitude or better, signiicantly reducing tooling costs and fabrication times. Sipe consolidation can be achieved by grouping similar sipes into clusters so that one sipe can represent all sipes in the cluster. A rigorous investigation of sipe parameters and optimal clustering methods is desired.