services Life Prediction of Rubber Compound By Accelerated Ageing and Mehanical Properties

Generally, the useful life of a rubber component is governed by its susceptibility to failure by either mechanical or chemical deterioration. There are well established tests to address the failure properties of elastomers – fracture mechanism to investigate mechanical durability and also accelerated aging tests for chemical degradation. This paper is presented to experimentally estimate the life span of the rubber blend comprising NR and SBR in a ratio of 3:1 at accelerated ageing conditions. The specimens are subjected to ageing at different temperatures mainly at 90ºC, 100 ºC, 120 ºC and 150 ºC. The changes estimated at these temperatures were then understood with the help of the concept of Arrhenius theory and were compared to the rubber sample at ordinary conditions and the retention in physical properties was assessed. So, the retention of these mentioned properties decrease with increase in temperature as well as time. As result, the minimum value for life span of compound was 2.6 years for 55% retention and 3 years for 60% retention.