Relative Contributions of Viscoelasticity and Aging to the Relaxation of Cured Rubber
Abstract Relaxation in relatively stable pure gum natural rubber vulcanizates has been studied to determine the effects of viscoelasticity and aging, respectively, using a dark air oven. A quantitative analysis of experimental results shows that, in the case of a dicumyl peroxide vulcanizate and at 100° C, relaxation is caused by aging, except in its initial stages. Stress decreases as a linear function of time, in agreement with theoretical assumptions. Conversely, at 30° C, the influence of aging is negligible. At this temperature the difference between actual stress and stress extrapolated to infinite time, is proportional to a negative power of time. At intermediate temperatures, both phenomena occur simultaneously over a time interval ranging from 3 minutes to 150 hours.