Strength of Amorphous and of Crystallizing Rubberlike Polymers

Abstract

Abstract The strengths of unloaded vulcanizates and the action of active fillers differ greatly according to the types of elastomers from which they are derived. These differences are not connected directly with the chemical compositions of the elastomers. Thus, for example, vulcanizates of natural rubber and synthetic isoprene rubber differ in strength in the ratio 10–15 to 1, whereas vulcanizates of Butyl rubber and of polychloroprene are very similar to natural rubber vulcanizates with respect to tensile strength. These differences in tensile strength cannot be ascribed directly to differences in structure of the chains, linear or branched; linear polymers of styrene and of methyl methacrylate “vulcanized” by small admixtures of butadiene-benzene or dimethacrylate-ethyleneglycol have, in the elastic state, tensile strengths which are just as low as those of unloaded vulcanizates of sodium-butadiene rubber or of isoprene rubber. The differences in tensile strength must, accordingly, be looked for in the different macroscopic properties of these polymers.