Lifetime Prediction of EPDM Rubber Seals Using Time-Temperature Superposition Principle and the Effect of Nanoparticles Loading on It

حسن آجیلی, شادی; Parsafard, Milad

Lifetime Prediction of EPDM Rubber Seals Using Time-Temperature Superposition Principle and the Effect of Nanoparticles Loading on It

Document Type : Original Research

Authors

ش. حسن آجیلی ¹

M. Parsafard ²

¹ Shiraz, Shiraz University, Faculty of Chemical, Oil and Gas Engineering, Department of Chemical Engineering

² Shiraz, Shiraz Road, Sepidan, Farapishtaz Honam Rubber Industries (Farab)

Abstract

Hypothesis: Because of the widespread use of rubbers in different industries, estimating the rubber material properties and its lifetime are very important in design procedure to assure the quality and safety of the rubber components. In this study, the properties and useful lifetime prediction of EPDM rubber parts used in the production of sealing gaskets and sealants for GRP pipes were investigated and the effect of adding silica nanoparticles as well as Si69 coupling agent on these characteristics was studied.

Methods: In this work, the samples were tested under accelerated aging conditions and aged in the temperature range of 25-90 °C until 60 days. Then time-temperature superposition was carried out on tensile test and compression set results using Williams Landel Ferry (WLF) model to estimate useful lifetime of the samples. Tensile test was conducted under ISO 12244 standard and compression set test was performed according to ISO 815 standard on rubber samples. Aging effect on samples with and without silica was analyzed with FTIR. In addition, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) were performed to observe the dispersion condition of silica nanoparticles in EPDM samples.

Findings: According to obtained results, TEM images showed no sign of nanoparticles agglomeration within the samples due to presence of Si69 and SEM graphs depicted a uniform distribution of particles in the matrix. Using time-temperature superposition principle, the lifetime was estimated about 63 and 35 years at room temperature for the rubber samples with and without silica and Si69 coupling agent, respectively. It was observed that the presence of modified silica nanoparticles improves the mechanical and thermal properties of EPDM and also increases the useful lifetime of this elastomer.

Keywords

EPDM rubber

Time-temperature superposition principles

Useful lifetime

silica

Coupling agent

Subjects

Processing

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