Studies On CR/EPDM Rubber Blends And Their FOAM Material

Polychloroprene (CR) has superior mechanical properties, excellent oil resistance, flame resistance,self-adhesive and mutual-adhesive properties. Theoretically, blending EPDM with CR can improve CR’s ozone-aging resistance, cold resistance and optimize the processability of CR.The rubber foam material has got more and more attention because of it’s excellent performance.CR/EPDM sponge also has wide range of applications and broad application prospects.This article explored the CR/EPDM blends,the basics of CR sponge and the relationship between the structure and the properties of CR/EPDM sponge material.In the studies the synchronous curing recipe of CR and EPDM was explored. At the ratio of 80/20,the CR/EPDM blends not only could maintain the high intensity of CR but also could effectively optimize the processability of CR, significantly improve CR’s ozone-aging resistance and cold resistance.MAH-g-EPDM was introduced as compatibilizer and the compatibility between CR and EPDM was improved successfully.The thermal properties, physical and mechanical properties, interfacial tension and interfaces structure of CR/EPDM blends with and without MAH-g-EPDM were investigated and the compatibilization mechanisms of it were discussed.Preparation tehnique was explored from studies on CR foam.The effect of the reinforcing filler system, foaming system and curing system on the structure and properties of CR foam material was studied by the central composite design method in the system of Minitab DOE,successfully identified the regression equation between this three factors and the structural parameters, foam material properties.Then, through the qualitative and quantitative analysis of the structural characteristics of the foams,we systematically investigated the relationships between the foam structures and the damping performance, compression performance, the energy absorption properties and mechanical properties of CR/EPDM sponge. It was found that the linear elastic region became narrower with the increase of the average pore diameter in the process of compression.The energy absorption capacity increased with pore diameter at constant strain. With the increasing of the foam density, the valus of Emax, Imax and the optimum energy absorption effect decreased. The static and dynamic stiffness ratio of the foam material using AC as the blowing agent was the lowest, which suggests the optimal damping performance.