A pneumatic tire includes a pair of bead portions. Each bead portion has a bead core, and a chafer rubber arranged axially inside the bead core and extending outward in a tire radial direction from a bead toe along a tire inner cavity surface. The chafer rubber is formed of a rubber composition not including fiber material for reinforcement.

A molded bale of a rubber-like block copolymer, the rubber-like block copolymer containing 5% by mass or more and 95% by mass or less of a polymer block (a) having a content of a vinyl aromatic monomer unit of 22% by mass or less; and 5% by mass or more and 95% by mass or less of a polymer block (b) having a content of a vinyl aromatic monomer unit of 23% by mass or more and less than 50% by mass, in which the rubber-like block copolymer has an iodine value of 10 to 250, an ethylene structure content of 3% by mass or more, and a vinyl aromatic monomer block content of less than 10% by mass.

A pneumatic tire having a side portion and a clinch portion, wherein: in a meridian cross section, the distance from a bead baseline to the outside portion in the width direction of the clinch portion is greater than the distance to the inside portion in the width direction; the E*.sub.S of the side portion, as measured at 70° C., a frequency of 10 Hz, an initial distortion of 5%, and a distortion rate of 1%, is less than the E*.sub.C of the clinch portion; and, formulas (1) and (2) are satisfied:

1600≤(Dt.sup.2×π/4)/Wt≤2827.4  (1)

[(V+1.5×10.sup.7)/Wt]≤2.88×10.sup.5  (2)

where Wt is the cross-sectional width of the tire installed on a standardized rim and filled with air to an internal pressure of 250 kPa, Dt is the outer diameter, and V is the volume of the tire.

A rubber compound for a pneumatic tyre portion comprising a cross-linkable unsaturated chain polymeric base, silica, processing oil and vulcanization agents; said reinforcing filler comprising silica. The ratio in phr between the reinforcing filler and the processing oil is greater than or equal to 3.

A pneumatic tire includes bead cores, a carcass ply, an inner liner and the tread, and the crosslinked rubber composition, of the present invention, wherein the tread and the crosslinked rubber composition have a volume of the low density region of 35% or more at elongation by an applied stress of 1.5 MPa, a volume of the void portion of 7.5 or less at elongation by an applied stress of 3.0 MPa and a ratio of 40% by mass or more of a component having a weight-average molecular weight of not less than 1,000,000 in a molecular weight distribution measured by gel permeation chromatography are excellent in abrasion resistance.

The pneumatic tire of the present invention characterized by comprising: bead cores, a carcass ply, an inner liner and a tread having a volume of the low density region of 35% or more, at elongation by an applied stress of 1.5 MPa, a volume of the void portion of 7.5% or less at elongation by an applied stress of 3.0 MPa and a glass transition temperature of −20° C. or lower, and the crosslinked rubber composition of the present invention having a volume of the low density region of 35% or more at elongation by an applied stress of 1.5 MPa, a volume of the void portion of 7.5 or less at elongation by an applied stress of 3.0 MPa and a glass transition temperature of −20° C. or lower are excellent in abrasion resistance.

A conjugated diene-based polymer of the present invention has a branch number (Bn) measured by viscosity detector-equipped GPC-light scattering measurement of 8 or more, has a change (ΔT) of an oxidation onset temperature caused through application of a thermal load of 11.9° C. or less, and contains an aromatic vinyl compound monomer unit.

The present invention relates to a tyre for vehicle wheels comprising at least one structural element comprising a crosslinked elastomeric material obtained by crosslinking a crosslinkable elastomeric composition comprising a predispersion of natural rubber and lignin obtained by co-precipitation from latex, where said lignin has a concentration of phenolic groups higher than 2 mmol per gram of lignin, and where said predispersion comprises an amount of said lignin such as to provide, in said crosslinkable elastomeric composition, a concentration of lignin equal to or lower than about 25 phr.

A coated wire includes a steel alloy coated with a coating comprising one or more amino alkoxy-modified silsesquioxane compounds selected from the group consisting of an amino alkoxy-modified silsesquioxane, an amino/mercaptan co-alkoxy-modified silsesquioxane, an amino/blocked mercaptan co-alkoxy-modified silsesquioxane, or a salt of one or more thereof. A rubber composition and a process for coating wire is also disclosed.

The invention relates to a tyre (100) for vehicle wheels comprising at least one structural element comprising a vulcanized elastomeric material obtained by vulcanizing a vulcanizable elastomeric composition comprising at least one vulcanizable diene elastomeric polymer and at least one composite reinforcing filler, a process for producing a tyre (100) comprising the composite reinforcing filler, a masterbatch comprising the composite reinforcing filler and a process for producing the same, as well as a process for producing the composite reinforcing filler.