The Behavior of Carbon Black-Filled Natural Rubber under High Strain Rates

Abstract

Abstract Tensile tests were conducted to obtain the deformation and failure characteristics of unfilled natural rubber (NR) and natural rubber with 25, 50, and 75 phr of N550 carbon black filler under quasistatic and dynamic loading conditions. The quasistatic tests were performed on an electromechanical INSTRON machine, while the dynamic test data were obtained from tensile impact experiments using a Charpy impact apparatus. In general, the modulus of the stress-extension ratio curves increases with increasing strain rate up to about 407, 367, 346, and 360 s−1 for unfilled, and 25, 50, and 75 phr for filled NR, respectively. Above these strain rates, the unfilled and filled natural rubber stress-extension ratio curves remained unchanged. The modulus increased with increasing strain rate because there was little time for stress relaxation. Above a critical strain rate, no change in modulus was observed because the time of the experiment was short compared to the lowest characteristic relaxation time of the material. Dynamic stress-extension ratio curves did not have the very sharp upturn at break, which is observed from strain-induced crystallization in natural rubber under quasistatic loading. Strain-induced crystallization appeared to be suppressed at high rates of loading. In fact, the highest dynamic tensile strength for the 25- and 50-phr carbon black-filled natural rubbers was smaller than those under quasistatic loading, while the highest dynamic tensile strength of the 75-phr carbon black-filled NR was greater than that in the static test. This indicated that high amounts of carbon black fillers will impede strain-induced crystallization in natural rubber.