The purpose of this study was to better understand the effect of filler type on abrasion resistance of natural rubber compounds.By way of background,silica mixing of natural rubber compounds has been a difficult challenge.The recent development of Agilon? by PPG has provided a route to circumvent the mixing issues(high mix temperatures required for the silanization step)associated with silica filled natural rubber compounds.This technology would be good for low rolling resistance natural rubber tread compounds;however,the treadwear has been a deficiency,in general.Work to understand the abrasion/wear mechanism has been initiated.In particular,the effect of filler-polymer interaction on abrasion was examined.The strength of the polymer-filler interaction was measured by microscopy(nSpec 3D topography).The abrasion resistance was measured with an angle abrader(at low severity(2° slip angle),medium severity(6° and 12° slip angle),and high severity(16° slip angle).The large data set was investigated using regression analysis to understand the factors governing abrasion resistance at each slip angle.Polymer type was also a significant factor;which means that the chemical mechanism is an important factor.At high slip angle,modulus was a significant factor governing abrasion resistance.The product of modulus and tangent delta was a significant factor with natural rubber compounds.It is a property predicted by David Livingston in 1969.The r-squared values models about 0.75,which means that 25% of the variation is un-accounted in this model.Future work will try to better understand the role of polymer-filler interaction.
展开▼
