Neu-Isenburg, Germany, 24. May 2017 – Hankooks Ventus Prime³ was developed with a focus on providing a balanced blend of performance, comfort, safety, and environmental friendliness, and is the newest premium comfort flagship in the successful Ventus product series offered by the company. Drivers benefit from well-designed driving characteristics, including even better braking performance on both wet and dry streets.
Improving braking performance on wet surfaces was a key task for Hankook engineers in developing the next generation of Ventus Prime products. To do so, Ventus Prime³ uses a new, high-grip silica tread compound and a new compounding technology which provides much better distribution of polymers and fillers in the tread compound. This allows the tyres to achieve both wet braking performance improved by around eight percent and reducing of rolling resistance. In addition, the four wide profiled grooves ensure fast drainage, which improves vehicle control on wet streets and helps reduce the danger of aquaplaning. The depth of the individual profiled grooves also depends on their position on the tyre, in order to counteract the classic conflict between wet and dry driving characteristics in the Ventus Prime³.
The current generation of the Ventus Prime also made another developmental leap when it comes to dry handling. By using a newly designed, asymmetrical tread, the actual contact surface between the tyre and the street was increased by ten percent. Along with the improved tread stiffness in both radial and lateral directions, and in conjunction with new “hybrid hardness” pattern ribs (different hardness levels on the outside and inside) and a massive outer tyre shoulder, the Ventus Prime³ provides significantly better dry performance. The dry braking performance of the tyre was also improved by three percent, whilst the traction was optimised, for instance, by applying chamfered profile block edges distributed across the entire tread surface, increasing the contact surface during braking.
Newly-developed, functionalised polymers with a high molecular weight in the tread blend of the Ventus Prime³ increase its wear-resistance by nine percent. The tyre is equipped with a highly-modern, lightweight, and especially sturdy Rayon carcass and a wide steel belt including a wrapped bandage and high-strength bead filler. Besides improving handling, this ensures precise steering feedback and great control, even at high speeds. Thanks to an improved pitch design and the optimised angle of lateral profiling, as well as a sidewall optimised for air resistance, developers were able to further develop the noise level of the tyres, once again improving the outstanding comfort features of the Ventus Prime³. By using a new technology when positioning the profile grooves, development engineers at Hankook were able to achieve a significant reduction in the noise level of the tread, even with improved tyre life.
