Characterisation of static and dynamic responses of natural rubber bio-composites

Abstract

Abstract. Characterisation of static and dynamic behavioural are presented in this study of hybrid filled natural rubber. The hybrid filler consists of a combination of oil palm ash (OPA) and egg shell powder (ESP). Testing on the samples are conducted in three different aspects namely static compression testing, time dependent stress relaxation testing in compression and dynamic compression testing. Mechanical properties such as the static stiffnesses, hysteresis loss ratios, stress relaxation responses, dynamic stiffnesses, phase angles and damping ratios are reported. The static stiffness values of the hybrid filled rubber, although lower than rubber filled carbon black, presented potential if the ESP content were to be increased. The stress relaxation responses lacked consistency in the uploading stages but were fairly consistent in the unloading stages where the relaxation was close to that of rubber filled carbon black. The dynamic properties appear to be no significant improvement over that of rubber filled carbon black filled. All hybrid filled rubber samples conformed to general dynamic properties of viscoelastic material and did not display any unexpected behaviour. Collectively, there is a trend of improvement with increasing ESP content but no prominent improvement over rubber filled carbon black is observed.

Design and development of engineering component using natural rubber biocomposites

“…It was said that the stiffness of the epoxidised natural rubber which is dependent on the hardness increases as the mol % of epoxidation increases, but the results obtained shows otherwise [14]. Based on a recent research, it also proves that the stiffness increases with the increase in the mol % of epoxidation where it was found that the 50 % mol epoxidised natural rubber can be seen to have superior stiffness properties and loss angle compared to 25 % mol epoxidised natural rubber [10]. This contradiction in the results is because of the use of the additional filler of the carbon black in the reinforcement of 25 % mol epoxidised natural rubber.…”

“…It is found that incorporating eggshell powder in the rubber compound improves the tensile strength, density, compression stress, compression set and hardness while oil palm fibres improves the Young's Modulus but decreases the tear strength of the rubber [6, 7]. In the preliminary studies, it was found that hybrid eggshell powder and oil palm fibres in natural rubber biocomposites showed promising results [8–10]. Hence, the hybrid biofilers are extended to use in different derivatives of natural rubber matrixes: 25 % mol epoxidised natural rubber, 50 % mol epoxidised natural rubber and deproteinised natural rubber to manufacture rubber bushing.…”

“…There are a lot of research carried out to study the properties of different types of rubber, 25 % mol epoxidised natural rubber, 50 % mol epoxidised natural rubber and deproteinised natural rubber as well as studies regarding the improvement of incorporating different types of biofillers into the rubber compound [8–10]. Nevertheless, there has not been any research carried out to study the properties of a rubber product used in the automotive industry which is produced using biofillers as reinforcement.…”