THE TENSILE AND FATIGUE PROPERTIES OF VULCANIZED NATURAL RUBBER UNDER AMBIANT TEMPERATURES

Abstract

A design of rubber components against fatigue failure is one of the critical issues to prevent the failures during the operation .Therefore; fatigue life prediction was the key technologies to assure the safety reliability of mechanical rubber. In present study, mechanical properties of natural rubber and fatigue life (constant amplitude stresses) were carried out experimentally at room temperature and 40 oC. The mechanical properties and constant fatigue life were compared with previous study. Tensile and Fatigue life tests were performed using Dumb-bell specimens. The experimental mechanical properties and fatigue life of natural rubber component agreed fairly with the published data of previous study above. While the mechanical properties and fatigue lives at 40 oC were decreased with about 33% of tensile properties at 0.2 strain and about 99% fatigue properties at 5x106 cycles compared with room temperature.