Journal of Applied Polymer Science, Vol.70, No.5, 985-994, 1998
Aging of vulcanizates of formulations for rubber seals
Typical formulations based on NBR (acrylonitrile butadiene rubber), EPDM (ethylene propylene diene monomer rubber), and a NBR-CR (polychloroprene rubber) blend were studied for various properties under accelerated air aging conditions. The trend in tensile properties indicated the propensity of these formulations to oxidative degradation. The derivatives of these properties, such as their retention indices, strain energy, and Mooney-Rivlin constants also showed similar trends. Some of the observations correlate to shelf-aging data, but the time to rupture data derived from ultimate elongation values did not provide tangible conclusions.