Patent 7344614 was granted and assigned to The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company on March, 2008 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A method for applying a breaker or other reinforcement layer to a carcass strip by strip includes the steps of calculating an end gap based upon a nominal strip width, the size of the carcass, and the end count desired; calculating a distributed gap required to distribute the calculated end gap substantially equally between each strip; and applying the breaker strip by strip with each strip being separated from an adjacent strip by the distributed gap spacing.