Effect of Carbon Black Blends on the Mechanical Properties of a Tread Compound for Passenger Radial Tires

This study is devoted to the study of carbon black blends in passenger tire tread compounds with respect to their mechanical, dynamical and thermal properties. A reference compound based on SBR/BR and 60 phr carbon black as reinforcing filler was initially designed. Ten samples based on this compound were prepared usingfour different types of carbon black. The mechanical, dynamical and thermal tests were carried out on appropriate samples made from these compounds to determine tensile strength, elongation-at-break, abrasion resistance, hardness, resilience, tan δ and heat build-up. The results indicated that the compound containing N550 carbonblack has the lowest abrasion resistance and temperature rise. On the other hand, the compound containing N220 carbon black showed the highest temperature rise, energy dissipation and abrasion resistance due to high structure and iodine adsorption number. To achieve improvement in mechanical and dynamical properties, mixturesof carbon blacks were used and the best results (low rolling resistance, high abrasion resistance and high traction) were obtained. We have shown in our previous research works that the viscoelastic behavior of cured compounds can be accurately described by the experimental data of tensile deformation vs. force of rubber strips and itscorresponding finite element models. Therefore, a new method for calculating the energy dissipation was proposed which was based on the finite element modeling of the tension in an in-house designed rubber sample. The results obtained by employing this technique were in very good agreement with the experimentally measureddynamical data.