Materials Science and Engineering Commons^™

A Novel Approach To Predicting The Lifetime Of Elastomers Undergoing Stress Relaxation, Stephen Ronan

Doctoral

his work opens with a broad overview of several factors influencing the behaviour of elastomeric materials under constant deformation. Following this, an evaluation of the common difficulties surrounding industry-standard lifetime prediction methods is presented. Subsequently, a novel method for the lifetime prediction of stress relaxation in elastomeric materials under constant deformation is introduced. Experimental testing to determine the influence of filler type and content was conducted on several natural rubber materials. The effect of altering the vulcanising agent, crosslink density and mixing time was also examined. Chemiluminescence was used to determine the influence that oxidation has on the overall life …