The stress-strain curves of NBR vulcanizates compounded with plasticizers and reactive oligomers were analyzed by our proposed elastic equation and the Mooney-Rivlin equation. Plasticizers employed in this study are dioctyl phthalate, ditridecyl phthalate, dioctyl adipate and tricresyl phosphate. The reactive oligomers were synthesized by the telomerization of styrene with carbon tetrachloride, and their molecular structure is represented as Cl
3-(-CH
2CH-)
n-Cl. In the earlier papers, we have reported that these oligomers act as the plasicizer for synthetic rubbers. It was recognized that the presented equation could as well explain many experimental facts as with pure rubber vulcanizates. The parameters, such as vkT, b. C
1 and C
2 are obtained from the plot of the proposed equation and the Mooney-Rivlin plot. For the Plasicizer-NBR system, vkT and C
1 merely decreased, while v and C
2 steeply decreased with increasing plasicizer amount (x). The linear relationship was obtained from the plot between (1-x)
2/b or C
2 and x. From these results, it seems that the weak pseudo-crosslinks in rubber vulcanizates are broken down by means of the solvation between rubber segments and plasticizers.
On the other hand, for the reactive oligomer-NBR system, these parameters increased with increasing oligomer amounts. This result shows that the reactive oligomers contribute to the formation of the primary crosslink and the pseudo-crosslink by the reaction or the interaction with rubber segment. Thus it seems that the reactive oligomers act as the reactive plasicizer for rubbers.
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