• Elastomers and Composites
• /
• v.54 no.1
• /
• pp.54-60
• /
• 2019

The rapid development of the automobile industry is an important factor that led to the dramatic development of synthetic rubber. The tread part of tire that comes in direct contact with the road surface is related to the service life of the tire. Rubber compounds used in tire treads are often blended with SBR (styrene-butadiene rubber) and BR (butadiene rubber) to satisfy physical property requirements. However, when two or more kinds of rubber are blended, phase separation and silica dispersion problems may occur due to non-uniform mixing of the rubber. Therefore, in this study, we synthesized an SBR copolymer with the same composition as that of a typical SBR/BR blend compound by controlling butadiene content during ESBR (emulsion styrene-butadiene rubber) synthesis. Subsequently, silica filled compounds were manufactured using the synthesized ESBR, and their mechanical properties, dynamic viscoelasticity, and crosslinking density were compared with those of the SBR/BR blended compound. When the content of butadiene was increased in the silica filled compound, the cure rate accelerated due to an increased number of allylic positions, which typically exhibit higher reactivity. However, the T-2 compound with increased butadiene content by synthesis less likely to show an increase in crosslink density due to poor silica dispersion. In addition, the T-3 compound containing high cis BR content showed high crosslink density due to its monosulfide crosslinking structure. Because of the phase separation, SBR/BR blend compounds were easily broken and showed similar $M_{100%}$ and $M_{300%}$ values as those of other compounds despite their high crosslink density. However, the developed blend showed excellent abrasion resistance due to the high cis-1,4 butadiene content and low rolling resistance due to the high crosslink density.

• Elastomers and Composites
• /
• v.5 no.2
• /
• pp.181-187
• /
• 1970

In vulcanizates of NR/SBR blending compounds, the physical properties decrease as the contents of SBR increase for the most part. but the abrasives showed reverse performance. However, since these conditions enough satisfy the requirements of tread, carcass and sidewall of tire, we found it was possible to take use of the quantity of SBR contained high on tire manufacturing.

• Elastomers and Composites
• /
• v.55 no.2
• /
• pp.108-113
• /
• 2020

Wear particles of the model tread compounds for bus and truck tires were made using a laboratory abrasion tester and characterized based on their size distributions, shapes, and crosslink densities. The influence of the carbon black contents and rubber compositions (NR= 100 and NR/BR= 80/20) on the production of wear particles was investigated. The wear particles were separated according to size using a sieve shaker. The shape properties of the wear particles were analyzed using an image analyzer and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Their shapes were observed as tiny stick cookies or sausages with bumpy surfaces. The particle size distribution tended to be smaller with increasing carbon black content. Moreover, the particle size distributions of the NR = 100 samples were larger than that of the NR/BR blend samples. There were different filaments in the wear particles. The filament diameters tended to be thinner with increasing carbon black content. The crosslink density increased with increasing carbon black content, and the crosslink densities of the NR= 100 samples were lower than those of the NR/BR blend ones. The particle size distribution tended to be smaller with increasing crosslink density. Based on the experimental results, the wear particles can be produced by detaching debris from the main body through repetitive strain and recovery.

• Elastomers and Composites
• /
• v.56 no.4
• /
• pp.223-233
• /
• 2021

In this study, epoxidized liquid isoprene rubber (E-LqIR) was used as a processing aid in a silica-filled natural rubber compound to improve the fuel efficiency, abrasion resistance, and oil migration problems of truck and bus radial tire tread. The wear resistance, fuel efficiency, and extraction resistance of the compound were evaluated according to the molecular weight of E-LqIR. Results of the evaluation showed that the E-LqIR compound had a lower chemical crosslink density than that of a treated distillate aromatic extract (TDAE) oil compound because of the sulfur consumption of E-LqIR. However, the filler-rubber interaction improved because of the reaction of E-LqIR with silica and crosslink with the base rubber by sulfur. As the molecular weight of E-LqIR increased, crosslink with sulfur was facilitated, and the filler-rubber interaction improved, resulting in improved abrasion resistance. The fuel efficiency performance of the E-LqIR compound was poorer than that of the TDAE oil compound because of the low chemical crosslink density and hysteresis loss at the free chain end of E-LqIR. However, the fuel efficiency performance improved as the molecular weight of E-LqIR increased.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
• /
• v.53 no.3
• /
• pp.357-363
• /
• 2015

The development of the environment-friendly tire that meets the standard requirements according to tire labeling system can be improved through using highly homogeneous silica immobilized zinc oxide nanoparticles. In this study, a considerable amount of nanoporous silica was essentially added into nano zinc oxide to improve the physiochemical properties of the formed composite. The introduction of nanoporous silica materials in the composite facilitates the improvement of the wear-resistance and increases the elasticity of the tread. Therefore, the introduction of nanoporous silica can replace carbon black as filler in the formation of composites with desirable properties for conventional green tire. Herein, mesoporous silica immobilized zinc oxide nanoparticle with desirable properties for rubber compounds was investigated. Composites with homogeneous dispersion were obtained in the absence of dispersants. The dispersion stability was controlled through varying the molar ratio, ageing time and mixing order of the reactants. A superior dispersion was achieved in the sample obtained using 0.03 mol of zinc precursor as it had the smallest grain size (50.5 nm) and then immobilized in silica aged for 10 days. Moreover, the specific surface area of this sample was the highest ($649m^2/g$).

• Elastomers and Composites
• /
• v.50 no.2
• /
• pp.110-118
• /
• 2015

In this study, diethylaminoethyl methacrylate-styrene-butadiene terpolymer (DEAEMA-SBR), in which diethylaminoethyl methacrylate (DEAEMA) was introduced to the SBR molecule as a third monomer, was synthesized by cold emulsion polymerization. It is expected that amine group introduced to a rubber molecule would improve dispersion of silica by the formation of hydrogen bond (or ionic coupling) between the amine group and silanol groups of silica surface. The chemical structure of DEAEMA-SBR was analyzed using proton nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (H-NMR), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), gel permeation chromatography (GPC) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). Then, various properties of DEAEMA-SBR/silica composite such as crosslink density, bound rubber content, abrasion resistance, and mechanical properties were evaluated. As a result, bound rubber content and crosslink density of DEAEMA-SBR/silica compound were higher than those of the SBR 1721 composite. Abrasion resistance and moduli at 300% elongation of the DEAEMA-SBR/silica composite were better than those of SBR 1721 composite due to the high bound rubber content and crosslink density. These results are attributed to high affinity between DEAEMA-SBR and silica. The proposed study suggests that DEAEMA-SBR can help to improve mechanical properties and abrasion resistance of the tire tread part.

• Journal of Platform Technology
• /
• v.11 no.6
• /
• pp.34-46
• /
• 2023

The design of non-pneumatic tires, which are created by filling the space between the wheel and the tread with elastomeric compounds or polygonal spokes, has become an important research topic in the automotive and aerospace industries. In this study, a system was designed for the design of non-pneumatic tires through the implementation of a generative adversarial network. We specifically examined factors that could impact the design, including the type of non-pneumatic tire, its intended usage environment, manufacturing techniques, distinctions from pneumatic tires, and how spoke design affects load distribution. Using OpenCV, various shapes and spoke configurations were generated as images, and a GAN model was trained on the projected GANs to generate shapes and spokes for non-pneumatic tire designs. The designed non-pneumatic tires were labeled as available or not, and a Vision Transformer image classification AI model was trained on these labels for classification purposes. Evaluation of the classification model show convergence to a near-zero loss and a 99% accuracy rate confirming the generation of non-pneumatic tire designs.