Properties of tire tread compounds based on functionalized styrene butadiene rubber and functionalized natural rubber

Tire tread compounds based on various rubber types, that is, solution styrene-butadiene rubber (SSBR), functionalized (propylamine and dimethoxysilane) solution styrene-butadiene rubber (F-SSBR), natural rubber (NR), chloroacetate-modified natural rubber (CNR), and their blends, were prepared and used as raw rubbers. Properties of tire tread compounds and tire performance were then investigated. Due to the presence of chloroacetate group on its mainchains, CNR demonstrates increases in glass transition temperature and rubber-filler interaction compared to NR leading to a significant improvement in tire performance, particularly wet grip (WG; ~88%), fuel-saving efficiency (FSE; ~15%), and abrasion resistance (~11%). Similarly, F-SSBR shows a greater tire performance than SSBR (~20, ~13, and ~7% improvements in WG, FSE, and abrasion resistance, respectively). Among the rubber blends, F-SSBR/CNR gives the highest tire performance, followed by F-SSBR/NR, SSBR/CNR, and SSBR/NR, respectively. The results suggest the significant enhancement in properties of tire tread compounds by the presence of active functional groups in NR and SSBR molecules. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2019 , 137, 48696.     

Adhesion and self-adhesion of immiscible rubber blends

Rubber blends of synthetic polyisoprene rubber (IR) and hydrogenated acrylonitrile butadiene rubber (HNBR) are prepared with different compositions. First, DSC results confirm that IR and HNBR are incompatible rubbers. A tensile testing machine equipped with a tack probe test allows us to measure the level of adhesion at rubber blends/glass as well as rubber blends/pure rubber interfaces, for contact times ranging from 0.1 s to a few hours. The adhesive properties of rubber blends were compared with those of pure rubbers. Adhesion energy G of IR/HNBR blends onto glass increases with the IR content in disagreement with a simple law of mixtures because of the influence of bulk properties of blends (morphology and mechanical behaviour). For a given blend, G increases with contact time certainly due to an interfacial reorganisation. Self-adhesion energies G_S of pure rubbers and IR/HNBR blends increase also with contact time, thanks to mainly an interdiffusion phenomenon of the rubber chains through the interface. Self-adhesion energy of blends in contact with pure IR follows a simple law of mixtures as a function of IR content. On the contrary, the variation of self-adhesion energy of these blends in contact with pure HNBR is more complex.     

Mechanical properties of deproteinized natural rubber in comparison with synthetic cis‐1, 4 polyisoprene vulcanizates: Gum and black‐filled vulcanizates

Gum and black‐filled vulcanizates having various crosslink densities were prepared from 2 types of rubber, namely, deproteinized natural rubber (DPNR) and synthetic cis‐1, 4 polyisoprene vulcanizates (IR). Their mechanical properties, such as tensile strength, tear strength, abrasion loss, and heat buildup resistance, at various crosslink densities as well as at similar optimum crosslink density were compared. For both gum and black‐filled systems, IR possessed a higher crosslink density than that of DPNR at a fixed curative content. Tensile and tear strength of all vulcanizates passed through a maximum with increasing crosslink density. For gum vulcanizates, tensile and tear strengths of DPNR and IR below the maximum were not much different. However, IR had a narrower tear strength peak relative to DPNR. At a comparable optimum crosslink density, DPNR exhibited higher tensile strength and crack growth resistance than IR. For black‐filled vulcanizates, tensile and tear strengths, and heat buildup resistance of DPNR and IR at a given crosslink density were similar. The results revealed that the properties of gum samples were more dependent upon crosslink density than the black‐filled ones because the reinforcement by carbon black overshadowed the intrinsic properties of the rubbers. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 97: 1139–1144, 2005     

Deterministic Excitation Forces for Simulation and Identification of Nonlinear Hysteretic SDOF Systems

This paper investigates how to design deterministic excitation forces in studying nonlinear single-degree-of-freedom systems, especially those with rate and path dependency and strength and stiffness degradation. One frequency-modulated periodic excitation and its amplitude-modulated counterpart are proposed as a solution, and a series of numerical exercises are carried out to show that these forces can be designed for sufficient forcing functions to study the complex nonlinear hysteresis. To rapidly reveal the underlying characteristics of the system and also to further lead to an effective system identification, four evaluation tools are proposed to be utilized together with the proposed excitation forces. These tools include the response curves, force-state map, intercycle drift, and intercycle pattern change, based on which some distinctive “patterns” are obtained to reveal the existence of nonlinearities, types of nonlinearities, existence of memory, and degradation. By using both Bouc-Wen and Bouc-Wen-Baber-Noori models for the system in all the simulations, the writers compare the commonly used forces with the proposed excitation forces to further demonstrate the advantages of the proposed excitation forces and evaluation tools. The writers also explore challenges in terms of implementing the proposed excitation forces. The results of this study are expected to benefit both physical testing and numerical simulation of complex nonlinear hysteretic systems in a time- and cost-effective manner, as well as leading to efficient schemes for system identification.     

Mixing efficiency in co‐rotating batch mixer for preparation of NR/EPDM blends

An in‐house developed co‐rotating batch mixer was used to prepare the blends of natural rubber (NR) and ethylene‐propylene‐diene terpolymer (EPDM) in the present work. Phase morphology and magnitude of dispersive mixing efficiency offered by the in‐house developed co‐rotating batch mixer and a conventional counter‐rotating batch mixer were compared. It has been found that the co‐rotating batch mixer equipped with the MX2 rotor configuration could improve the dispersive mixing efficiency of NR/EPDM blends considerably. A poor state‐of‐mix in blends, particularly at high fill factor, could be overcome by the utilization of MX2 rotor configuration where the extensional flow is probably facilitated in the converging zones. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2012     

Study of chitosan and its derivatives as preservatives for field natural rubber latex

In this study, the chitosan and its derivatives were tested for their preservative activities for field natural rubber (NR) latex. A series of chitosans with different molecular weights were obtained by nitrous acid depolymerization. The chemically modified chitosans, N‐carboxymethyl chitosan (NCMCh), N‐sulfated chitosan (NSCh), and N‐(2‐hydroxy)propyl‐3‐trimethylammonium chitosan chloride (NHTACh), were prepared from high and low‐molecular weight chitosans. Preservative activities for field NR latex of these chitosans were investigated based on the measurement of volatile fatty acids (VFA) number of the treated latex. The preservative activities of chitosan increased with decreasing molecular weights. The low‐ molecular weight NSCh and NHTACh exhibited good preservative activity for the latex. By the use of low‐molecular weight NHTACh in combination with octylphenol poly (ethyleneglycolether) (Nonidet P40), the latex was successfully preserved for more than 1 month in the low‐ammonia condition. The results showed an attractive feature to develop the preservative system, which was possible to reduce the concentrations of ammonia and carcinogenic nitrosamine in the NR latex. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2011     

Linking Nonlinear System Identification with Nonlinear Dynamic Simulation under OpenSees: Some Justifications and Implementations

This study seeks to bridge the gap between nonlinear system identification and nonlinear dynamic finite-element analysis. Motivated by the needs in earthquake simulation, it is first investigated under which conditions and to what degree the prediction of maximum lateral drift and base shear requires accurate nonlinear hysteretic moment-rotation joint models. A series of simulations is carried out using a simple but typical steel frame under two different earthquake ground motion time histories scaled up to various levels. As one of the two major classes of models in nonlinear system identification, nonparametric models are proposed to be implemented into OpenSees. A methodology with details is provided to effectively implement feedforward neural networks with one hidden layer as a new one-dimensional nonlinear smooth material model directly from a MATLAB environment to OpenSees. The same methodology can be applied to benefit the implementation of other parametric and nonparametric models with linear parameterization. Numerical examples are provided. Challenges are discussed and future work is identified.     

Rheological and processing properties of purified natural rubber

Studies were performed on the nature and magnitude of the variabilities in the rheological and processing properties of purified natural rubber (PNR). PNR samples were prepared from three clones of NR (RRIM 600, GT 1, and KRS 156). The corresponding whole NR (WNR) containing total nonrubber substances was also prepared for comparative purposes. All samples were stored for 3 months to elucidate the effect of storage on their rheological and processing properties. A novel study was also conducted to determine whether the commonly reported variabilities in the rheological properties had actual effects on the mixing. These were studied by means of an instrumented torque rheometer fitted with a small mixer head. The results showed that the vulcanization time of PNR was consistent and did not show clonal variation. PNR exhibited large clonal variation in the viscosity at a low shear rate and storage hardening, similar to the ordinary NR. However, the variations in the viscosity of PNR became less evident as the shear rates increased toward 200 s^?1. The significant findings were that the observed variations in the rheological properties had no practical effect on the mixing time of PNR samples with carbon black. Moreover, the PNR samples required less energy for mixing than their WNR counterparts. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 98: 456–465, 2005     

Origin of phase shift in atomic force microscopic investigation of the surface morphology of NR/NBR blend film

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) was used to study the morphology and surface properties of NR/NBR blend. Blends at 1/3, 1/1 and 3/1 weight ratios were prepared in benzene and formed film by casting. AFM phase images of these blends in tapping mode displayed islands in the sea morphology or matrix-dispersed structures. For blend 1/3, NR formed dispersed phase while in blends 1/1 and 3/1 phase inversion was observed. NR showed higher phase shift angle in AFM phase imaging for all blends. This circumstance was governed by adhesion energy hysteresis between the device tip and the rubber surface rather than surface stiffness of the materials, as proved by force distance measurements in the AFM contact mode.     

Mechanical properties,thermal stability,gas permeability,and phase morphology in natural rubber/bromobutyl rubber blends

This work was performed to relate the morphological features and all important properties of the natural rubber (NR) and bromobutyl rubber (BIIR) blends containing hybrid fillers. The BIIR content was varied from 0 to 100 wt%. It is found that tensile and tear strength, hardness as well as resilience of blends tend to decrease with increasing BIIR loading. Regarding the blend morphology, phase inversion is observed when BIIR loading is >50 wt % where BIIR becomes a continuous phase. This result coincides with the marked improvement of thermal stability of the blends determined using thermogravimetric analysis and heat ageing method. Interestingly, that, the gas permeability of blends markedly reduces with an increase in BIIR loading up to 40 wt % when the relatively large elongated particles of BIIR dispersed phase is formed. The results indicate that the relatively large connected structure of the dispersed BIIR can act effectively as a gas barrier. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2009