Effects of rubber type on the curing and physical properties of silica filled rubber compounds

As environmental regulations are getting stricter, tire industries for automobiles have shown much interest in substituting silica for conventional carbon black partially or entirely. To take full advantage of silica as fillers for rubbers, it is essential to find a reasonable rubber system that shows an excellent performance with silica reinforcement. Therefore, in this study, several different rubber compounds comprising the same amount of silica were prepared with several different rubber systems, respectively. The processability, curing characteristics, and mechanical and viscoelastic properties of the rubber compounds were investigated to analyze the performance of the rubber compounds as tire tread materials. Among the rubber compounds studied, SBR1721 compound comprising natural rubber (NR) and styrene butadiene rubber (SBR) with high styrene content was considered the most appropriate for application to tire tread materials. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.