TITLE:
Use of Shore Hardness Tests for In-Process Properties Estimation/Monitoring of Silicone Rubbers
AUTHORS:
H. Zhao, D. Allanson, X. J. Ren
KEYWORDS:
Silicone Room Temperature Vulcanization (RTV), Shore Hardness, Elastic Properties, FE Modelling, Quality Control
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering,
Vol.3 No.7,
July
1,
2015
ABSTRACT:
Casting is an important rubber manufacturing
process for both production and material developments. A quick and flexible way
of testing the constitutive materials properties of rubber products is very
important for optimising the processing parameters and quality control. In many
cases, standard tests such as tensile or compression tests are time consuming
and require a large volume of materials. This work reports some recent work in
using a combined numerical and experimental approach to characterise the
properties of rubber materials during a casting process. Durometer shore
hardness is used to test silicone rubbers (as a model material) with different
compositions on different moulding planes and the linear elastic property is
estimated from the hardnesses. The predicted properties are systematically
compared with the experimental tests on hard and soft silicone rubber samples
with different compositions. The work shows that shore hardness can be used as
an effective way to monitor the materials properties during amoulding process
for process optimisation and quality control.