Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have attracted growing interest as a filler in rubber nanocomposites due to their mechanical and electrical properties. In this study, the mechanical properties of a NR/BR/IR/SBR compound reinforced with single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) were investigated using atomic force microscopy (AFM), tensile tests, hardness tests, and a dynamical mechanical analysis (DMA). The tested materials differed in SWCNT content (1.00–2.00 phr) and were compared with a reference compound without the nanofiller. AFM was used to obtain the topography and spectroscopic curves based on which local elasticity was characterized. The results of the tensile and hardness tests showed a reinforcing effect of the SWCNTs. It was observed that an addition of 2.00 phr of the SWCNTs resulted in increases in tensile strength by 9.5%, Young’s modulus by 15.44%, and hardness by 11.18%, while the elongation at break decreased by 8.39% compared with the reference compound. The results of the temperature and frequency sweep DMA showed higher values of storage and loss moduli, as well as lower values of tangent of phase angle, with increasing SWCNT content.
Modelling the influence of high-energy ionising radiation on the properties of materials with polymeric matrix using advanced artificial intelligence tools plays an important role in the research and development of new materials for various industrial applications. It also applies to effective modification of existing materials based on polymer matrices to achieve the desired properties. In the presented work, the effects of high-energy electron beam radiation with various doses on the dynamic mechanical properties of melamine resin, phenol-formaldehyde resin, and nitrile rubber blend have been studied over a wide temperature range. A new stiffness-temperature model based on Weibull statistics of the secondary bonds breaking during the relaxation transitions has been developed to quantitatively describe changes in the storage modulus with temperature and applied radiation dose until the onset of the temperature of the additional, thermally-induced polymerisation reactions. A global search real-coded genetic algorithm has been successfully applied to optimise the parameters of the developed model by minimising the sum-squared error. An excellent agreement between the modelled and experimental data has been found.
The atomic force microscopy is method used to obtain surface properties of various materials, including surface morphology, local magnetization, conductivity and mechanical properties. In this work the atomic force microscope was used to investigate properties of rubber compounds. Three samples made of different rubber compounds that varied in filler content were studied in order to determinate their homogeneity and ratios of their Young's moduli. Images of their surface topography were obtained and then on each sample five places were chosen where spectroscopic curves representing force -distance dependence were scanned. Parts of these curves from which Young's modulus can be determined were approximated by linear functions and their slope was calculated. Slope values close to each other suggest similar values of Young's modulus. By their comparison it was determined whether even distribution of ingredients in rubber compound can be assumed and thus the blending process to produce these compounds can be considered sufficient.
This paper deals with the creation of a computational model of a multi-layered composite made of long fibres embedded in a polymer matrix and its use to simulate the response of the composite to a shear test. The research involves the determination of material parameters of the matrix (elastomer, in the context of the current paper) as well as of fibres (textile-cords and steel-cords). Careful attention is given to the Mooney-Rivlin parameters obtained from the elastomers tensile test for these simulations since shear tests have not been performed. Then by getting advantage of APDL (Ansys Parametric Design Language) in ANSYS, the computational model was successfully created and lastly simulated. The outputs obtained from the computational modelling will greatly help later to refine the orthotropic parameters of the composite, needed in future works to build up and achieve computational simulations of tires.
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