TOWARDS UNDERSTANDING OF THE RHEOLOGY OF RUBBER COMPOUNDS AND THEIR PROCESSING

摘要

The problems of the rheological properties of rubber compounds and the understanding ofthe processing operations that are used to produce rubber products have received relatively littlestudy in the literature compared to thermoplastics. This seems in part due to an almost 200 yearold tradition of industrial secrecy and the vertically integrated nature of the synthetic rubber pro-ducer - tire manufacturer combines in the USA. Thus while abundant information has alwaysbeen available from thermoplastics suppliers on processing technology, little has been availableon rubber. Because I began my professional career in the rubber industry and became from anearly age concerned with its technical problems, I have not been swayed to the same extent bythe thermoplastics dominated technical literature as others in the polymer community. In this paper, I will describe the development of unvulcanized rubber compound rheologyand processing and try to describe in this light whatever contributions I have made.