Elastomeric materials are widely used in oilfield engineering applications frequently as seals, membranes and flexible hoses. Due to the high pressure gas environments and the temperature impact a phenomenon termed rapid gas decompression (RGD) failure occurs upon the sudden release of the gas pressure. This failure leads to crack initiation and crack growth up to a total fragmentation of the used component. Therefore, it is of paramount theoretical and practical importance to characterize the fracture and fatigue behavior of elastomers.The main objective of this study is to characterize the fracture and fatigue behavior of various HNBR elastomer grades in terms of crack resistance curves, to establish a correlation between these curves and the volume change as well as the fracture behavior during the depressurization process. In addition to the cycles to failure also the hysteretic performance was considered to analyze the process of crack initiation, stable crack growth and failure of the material. Finally, instrumented RGD experiments were carried out with special focus on the kinetic of the volume change. The fracture and fatigue performance was correlated with the volume change curves to enhance the understanding of the rapid gas decompression failure process and to support further material development efforts.
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