In this paper, the fatigue life of natural rubber (NR)/styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR) compound is evaluated experimentally. The parameters investigated are the NR, SBR, and nanoclay loading in the composition, strain amplitude, and the frequency of the fatigue test. Fracture surfaces of NR/SBR/nanoclay compound are investigated using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The results show that by increasing NR and the nanoclay loading in the rubber composition, the fatigue life of the rubber increases. For the nanoclay, a threshold value exists beyond which the fatigue life of the rubber compound decreases. It is also observed that by increasing the test frequency, the fatigue life of the rubber compound decreased. Tensile, hardness, and dynamic mechanical thermal analysis (DMTA) tests were also performed to evaluate the mechanical and thermal properties of the compound. SEM results show that by increasing the strain amplitude, the test specimens fail softly, and the addition of nanoparticles roughens the fracture surface and increases the fatigue life.
This paper deals with the fatigue life analysis of a blend of natural rubber (NR) and styrene‐butadiene rubber (SBR) with and without nanoclay particles. Various damage parameters based on strain are investigated. A nonlinear finite element analysis is carried out by using ABAQUS. To formulate the life prediction models, the measured fatigue life is used together with various damage parameters. It is shown that all the damage parameters can estimate the fatigue lives effectively with correlation coefficients greater than 0.9. There is a good agreement between the obtained fatigue live predictions and the measured fatigue results. The effect of various parameters such as true strain and nanoparticles' loading is also investigated. The results of sensitivity analysis show that the strain has a greater effect on the variation of the rubber compounds' fatigue life. The test samples' fracture surface is assessed via scanning electron microscopy (SEM). SEM results show that as the strain increases, the test samples softly fail while the fracture surface of the nanocomposite is roughened by the addition of nanoclay.
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