Numerical study on rubber compounds made of reactivated ethylene propylene diene monomer for fiber reinforced elastomeric isolators

Abstract

A huge amount of rubber waste coming from tire industry or other sources (eg, weather strips producers) has attracted interest from researchers to investigate the possibility of recycling used rubber for various products, particularly in construction sector. This article presents a series of experimental and numerical investigations to evaluate the feasibility of regenerated synthetic rubber ethylene propylene diene monomer (EPDM) for production of a building seismic isolation system. Four rubber blends using two different sources of regenerated EPDM are considered in this study. The mechanical properties of the recycled rubber under study are evaluated through uniaxial tensile and relaxation tests, considering the accelerated aging effect. Based on several hyperelasticity and viscosity models of rubber available in the literature, several numerical test simulations on rubber compounds and on a prototype of fiber reinforced elastomeric isolators (FREIs) are performed. The test results reveal that the proposed regenerated EPDM compounds can be particularly suitable for the production of unbonded FREIs, especially because they are able to exhibit low/moderate tensile stresses at high‐shear strain. The results also show that not all regenerated rubber blends fulfill the durability requirements of rubber for seismic isolation after accelerated aging tests. The durability of the specimens seems to be mainly affected by the choice of the regenerated rubber source.

Low-Cost Rubber Compounds for Fiber-Reinforced Elastomeric Isolators: Recovered Powders and Waste Oils From Rubber Manufacturing Processes

“…The reference regenerated EPDM compound is the Batch 4 developed by A. B. Habieb et al [14]. Commercial virgin rubber is blended with regenerated EPDM.…”

Fe Modeling of a Seismic Isolator Made of HDR and Regenerated Epdm

“…This type of rubber compound, made of natural rubber (NR), guarantees a good performance in terms of energy dissipation (Figure 1), but at the same time, it is vulnerable to quick aging. To protect the HDR, it has been considered a second rubber compound used as ring for each pad, namely a reactivated EPDM made with 2/3 of regenerated rubber and 1/3 of virgin rubber [8,9,10] which shows good performances even under aging effects (Figure 2). In Figure 3 it's possible to see the single rubber pad, made of an EPDM frame (Green) with a thickness of 5 mm, and the core (65x65 mm 2 ) of HDR (Red).…”

“…Figure2: Stretch-stress (a) and relaxation curves (b) of reactivated EPDM, before and after aging[9] …”

Preparation and characterization of maleic anhydride‐grafted desulfurization rubber powder by free‐radical polymerization

“…Therefore, these technologies are the most promising disposal methods for scrap tires, and they are also the best choice to achieve sustainable utilization of scrap tire resources. [ 12–14 ]…”