The Stress-Strain Behavior of Natural Rubber

Abstract

Abstract This treatment of the stress-strain behavior of natural rubber is based upon experimental and theoretical data on the cold stretching of high polymers gathered from work being in progress for some time at Marburg. These investigations indicate that deformation processes of matter should not be treated exclusively as purely mechanical phenomena though this is still being done. Especially in the case of natural rubber there exist very thorough analyses of these heat effects caused by deformation. Their theoretical evaluation furnished the basis for the thermodynamic-statistical theory of rubber elasticity. This created the picture of a molecular mechanism which with new additions permitted the description of a host of details including those for stress-strain behavior. However the relationship between the shape of the stress-strain diagrams and any particular deformation condition can only be explained if the actions of the deformational heat effects upon the course of the deformation are considered. In the following an attempt will be made to discuss the actions of the heat effects, in other words to examine the deformation processes as mechanical-thermal ones. Although there are, at present, no experimental results on hand, the expected consequences for the deformational behavior of rubber will be surveyed. Experimental work is in progress.