Preparation and characterisation of high damping poly(epichlorohydrin) (CO) and poly(epichlorohydrin- co -ethylene oxide- co -allyl glycidyl ether) (GECO) elastomers: II. effect of resin type and liquid butadiene rubber (LBR) on damping properties

Abstract

In this study, the effects of resin type and liquid butadiene rubber (LBR) on the rheological, network structure, mechanical, dynamic mechanical, and damping properties of poly(epichlorohydrin) (CO) and poly (epichlorohydrin-co-ethylene oxide-co-allyl glycidyl ether) (GECO) elastomers were investigated. To study the impact of resin type, C8/C9 and C9/C10 aromatic hydrocarbon resins, phenolic resin, and LBR were used as liquid rubber. Rheological studies have shown that adding resin and LBR in the preparation of both CO and GECO-based elastomers reduces the degree of curing and, as a result, the cross-link density due to the plasticising effect of these agents. While the change in cross-link density reduced the tensile strength, it increased the elongation value at break. A sharp decline in the mechanical properties of systems using LBR has been observed. When using resin, the most significant change observed was in the damping properties of elastomers. The use of resin enhanced the energy dissipation properties. In both CO- and GECO-based elastomers, phenolic resin was identified as the most effective for extending the effective damping range. CO-DP5245 demonstrates effective damping (tanδ > 0.3) at particularly high temperatures (ranging from −2.0 °C to +70 °C), while GECO-T3108 shows effective damping at low temperatures (ranging from −36.1 °C to +10.5 °C). Among all the prepared elastomers, the highest tan delta (tanδ) value was obtained in the CO-PhenRes elastomer, which was formulated using CO-DP5245 and phenolic resin. This makes it suitable for high-temperature applications. Cyclic compression and dynamic mechanical analyses show that the GECO-based elastomer, prepared using C8/C9 hydrocarbon resin, is the most effective elastomer for low-temperature damping applications. These studies demonstrate that all physico-mechanical and dynamic mechanical properties can be modified in a controlled manner by altering the network structure using resin and LBR in both CO and GECO-based elastomers.