Determination of characteristics of natural rubber/styrene–butadiene rubber-based elastomer material filled with mica powder and glass spheres

Abstract

Different filler materials are widely used in industry both for obtaining better mechanical properties and decreasing the overall costs. In this study, several uniaxial tensile tests were conducted for 5.15% (MP1-GS1), 9.4% (MP2-GS2), and 13.4% (MP3-GS3) of glass spheres and mica powder-filled elastomer materials. In this research, the results obtained from tensile tests of samples made of natural rubber/styrene–butadiene rubber (NR/SBR)-based elastomer materials in which different amount of glass spheres (GS) and mica powder (MP) mixed were characterized using the finite element method. The values of forces and displacements obtained from the tests were transferred to ABAQUS 6.7 finite element analysis (FEA) software. Among all hyperelastic material models, Marlow’s model was found to be the most suitable one and was utilized as a material model in the FEA. Mechanical tests and the finite element results were compared with each other. Comparison of the results show that while the error percentage changed between 0.01 and 0.5% for the MP-filled samples, the error percentage changed between 0.25 and 0.5% for GS-filled samples. The effects of MP and GS filler materials on the mechanical properties of NR/SBR elastomer were compared. Maximum stress and strain values were observed in GS2 and MP2 materials.