Abstract
The minimisation of viscoelastic effects, which give rise to creep, stress– relaxation, hysteresis, and set in elastomers, is highly desirable in engineering applications, particularly in sealing applications. Natural rubber is an important engineering material and as such much work has been carried out to minimise the above properties in an attempt to enhance service life. Consequently, a diverse range of compounding techniques is available for natural rubber. These techniques have been utilised in nitrile rubber mixes primarily in an attempt to minimise compression stress–relaxation and compression set along with other properties, which are considered pertinent to elastomeric materials used as seals and gaskets exposed to hydrocarbon liquids and vapours. The way in which these compounding techniques affect network structure and thus various sealing properties in nitrile rubber vulcanisates is discussed in terms of crosslink concentration, crosslinking efficiency, and mean apparent sulphur rank of crosslinks.
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