Abrasion and Mixed Sliding–Rolling Properties of Polyisoprene-Based Tread Rubber

Abstract

Tread rubber plays a crucial role in governing the service life of aviation tires, where it has to withstand harsh tribological loadings. Toward the goal of guiding the development of high-performance tread rubber materials, isoprene rubber (IR)-based composites were manufactured and investigated in mixed sliding–rolling conditions; the tribological properties and tribo-mechanisms were studied in relation to sulfur content, abrasion angle, temperature, load, velocity and sliding–rolling ratio. Consideration was also given regarding the correlation between abrasion loss and mechanical performances of the isoprene rubber composites, which indicated a linear relation with the product of Hσε (hardness, tensile strength and elongation at break). By combining the tribological results, the rubber composite with 5 phr sulfur overall showed better performance in abrasion and mixed sliding–rolling conditions.

Keywords:

• abrasion
• isoprene tread rubber
• mixed sliding–rolling tribology
• sulfur content
• tribo-mechanism

Additional information

Funding

The authors acknowledge the financial support from the Key Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. XDPB24 and XDC06020302), the Major Program of the Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, CAS (No. ZYFZFX-7) and the Yantai Zhongke Research Institute of Advanced Materials and Green Chemical Engineering (Grant No. AMGCE018).