Goodyear Medalist Lecture. Goodyear Medalist Lecture Towards Understanding of the Rheology of Rubber Compounds and their Processing

Abstract

Abstract The problems of the rheological properties of rubber compounds and the understanding of the processing operations that are used to produce rubber products have received relatively little study in the literature compared to thermoplastics. This seems in part due to an almost 200 year old tradition of industrial secrecy and the vertically integrated nature of the synthetic rubber producer — tire manufacturer combines in the USA. Thus while abundant information has always been available from thermoplastics suppliers on processing technology, little has been available on rubber. Because I began my professional career in the rubber industry and became from an early age concerned with its technical problems, I have not been swayed to the same extent by the thermoplastics dominated technical literature as others in the polymer community.