Hardness and compression resistance of natural rubber and synthetic rubber mixtures

This project aims to mechanically characterize through compression resistance and shore hardness tests, the mixture of hevea brasiliensis natural rubber with butadiene synthetic rubber (BR), styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR) and ethylene-propylene-diene monomer rubber (EPDM). For each of the studied mixtures were performed 10 tests, each of which increased by 10% the content of synthetic rubber in the mixture; each test consisted of carrying out five tests of compression resistance and five tests of shore hardness. The specimens were vulcanized on a temperature of 160°C, during an approximate time of 15 minutes, and the equipment used in the performance of the mechanical tests were a Shimadzu universal machine and a digital durometer. The results show that the A shore hardness increases directly proportional, with a linear trend, with the content of synthetic BR, SBR or EPDM rubber present in the mixture, being the EPDM the most influential. With respect to the compression resistance is observed that the content of BR or SBR increase this property directly proportional through a linear trend; while the EPDM content also increases but with a polynomial trend.