Preparation and Characterization of Hard Rubber and Soft Rubber for Marine Rubber Fender

摘要

The main aim of installing marine rubber fender is to protect both the vessel and the dock from major failure during the berthing period.External forces,such as abrasion or other natural factors may occur during the berthing process.Therefore,marine rubber fenders are made to overcome this problem,and hence more money can be saved due to less vessel or dock fixing.There are two types of rubber that can be used as marine rubber fenders,namely hard rubber(HR)and soft rubber(SR),which have different requirements in terms of hardness,tensile strength,elongation at break,tear strength,abrasion resistance,and compression set.In this study,HR and SR are prepared from natural rubber(rubber smoked sheet 1)and synthetic rubber(styrene butadiene rubber)using laboratory kneader and open mill.Ratio of natural rubber and synthetic rubber is studied to investigate the effects on mechanical properties of HR and SR.The result shows that 70/30 phr natural rubber/synthetic rubber is proven to fulfill the requirement of rubber fender for HR and SR.