The fracture behaviour of elastomers at higher loading speed in dependence on test temperature

The paper presents results from experimental investigations of elastomeric materials. For the characterization of the fracture behaviour at higher loading speed, different test methods were applied: the instrumented notched tensile-impact test and the instrumented free falling dart test. The only experimental possibility of tempering specimens for tensile-impact tests is an external one. Therefore, special holders for the specimens were developed so that instrumented notched tensile-impact tests can be performed at different temperatures within the range between-70°C and 150°C. Generally, the recorded load-deformation diagrams can be used for the assessment of the deformation and fracture characteristics and for a fracture mechanics analysis. So, the paper shows results of instrumented notched tensileimpact tests for carbon black (CBreinforced styrene-butadiene-rubber (SBR natural rubber (NR ethylene-propylene diene rubber (EPDMvulcanizates, which were performed in the range between-70°C and 80°C. The CB content of the materials reported within this paper was 40 phr. For the various elastomers, strong differences of the material behaviour were found in dependence on the temperature. Furthermore, an important factor influencing clearly the fracture behaviour of the materials under the aspect of a changing temperature is the amount of filler and it was found that this is not consistent for the three rubber matrices. Furthermore, results of instrumented free falling dart tests with natural rubber vulcanizates at different temperatures are presented