Isochronous Stress-Strain Relationship in Compressive Stress Relaxation of Vulcanizates

Abstract

Abstract The mechanical and other properties of natural and synthetic rubbers can be regulated by the incorporation of fillers. The mechanical behavior of the resulting complicated heterogeneous systems is often difficult to describe theoretically. These vulcanizates have wide and useful applications under conditions of multiaxial stresses. In many cases, however, the stresses act mainly in compression, for instance, in gaskets, seals, suspension systems for vibration insulation, etc. Thus the stress relaxation properties in compression are of vital importance. In spite of this, very few studies have given attention to the stress-strain relations in compression, and the results reported in the literature concentrate mainly on the mechanical behavior of rubbers in tension. We now report a study of the isochronous stress-strain relation in compression for some rubbers at 295 K, based on stress relaxation measurements. A comparison is made between the behavior of samples which have been greased and of samples which have been glued to the deformation plates.