Abstract

The rubbers containing various kinds of fillers exhibit fabulous mechanical characteristic and therefore, they are widely used in various production. Owing to the wide range of controllability in mechanical characteristics by adding the coupling agent, silica-filled rubber draws attention for extensive usage. Here, to clarify the mechanism of the marked increase in deformation resistance in silica-filled rubber in detail, we will construct the finite element homogenization models of silica-filled rubber. These models can reflect various experimental observations that include changes in microscopic structural characteristics such as distribution morphology of silica particles, the thickness of the interfacial phase between silica and rubber, and the networklike gel structures developed from the interfacial phase. The obtained results clarified the essential physical enhancement mechanisms of deformation resistance and hysteresis loss, i.e., the Mullins effect, for rubber filled with silica. The volume fraction of the silica coupling agent essentially affects the deformation behavior of silica-filled rubber suggesting the high controllability of the material characteristics of silica-filled rubber compared with carbon-black-filled rubber. Although, the present model underestimates the hysteresis loss as compared with the experimental results, it has a capability to evaluate the effect of adding coupling agents on the fundamental deformation behavior of silica filled rubber.

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