Study of the relationship between fatigue crack growth and dynamic chip & cut behavior of reinforced rubber materials

Abstract

This work focuses on the experimental investigation of rubber fracture behavior due to fatigue crack growth (FCG) as well as on the dynamic chip and cut (CC) analysis. We firstly show a relationship between FCG and CC for rubber blends composed of natural rubber (NR), styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR) and ethylene-propylene-diene-monomer rubber (EPDM). As specific results the rate of crack growth rate at given tearing energy and of dynamic rubber wear depending on the corresponding blend compositions are shown. A comprehensive description is also presented of a newly developed advanced CC measuring concept that allows an exactly quantified determination of the relation between damaging energy and its effects.