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Journal of Applied Polymer Science, Vol.70, No.8, 1633-1641, 1998
Fatigue-resistant silicone elastomer formulations
Fatigue-resistant elastomers have been prepared using various metal oxides as fillers in poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS)-based elastomers. The judicious choice of inorganic fillers produced elastomers that were stable under cyclic testing at elevated temperatures. These experiments were carried out using the Mechanical Energy Resolver, an instrument modified to reduce testing time from approximately 6 weeks to 60 h. Four elastomers showed stable storage moduli, were creep resistant, and showed less than 1% weight loss after 60 h. By comparison, a formulation prepared with alumina as the filler showed high rates of creep and greater than 10% weight loss.