Considerations in Formulating Rubber Products

Rubbers come from two distinct sources: natural rubber, which is created using latex drawn from rubber trees; and synthetic rubber, which is chemically synthesized. Regardless of origin, every rubber is characterized by its ability to withstand very large deformations and then "bounce back" essentially to its original condition. Natural rubber, while used in many products today, has mechanical, chemical and environmental resistance limitations that would make it unusable for many applications; very often synthetic rubbers can be formulated to address these short comings.

There is actually no such thing as standard rubber materials; for each use, there is a custom formulated product that is tailored to meet the precise needs of that application. Rubber is a far more complex material than other materials such as steel or plastic. Whereas steel or plastic typically is the result of melting 3 - 4 materials together, a rubber formulation often consists of 10 - 20 materials blended together. Additionally, several of these components will undergo an irreversible chemical reaction when the rubber is vulcanized during the manufacturing cycle. Because of the sheer number of ingredients and the transforming chemical reactions, there is no realistic way to reverse engineer rubber. Formulating rubber is more "art" than "science".

In formulating a rubber product, there are three types of performance challenges to consider.

1. Dynamic. The one factor that distinguishes rubber from other materials is the very large deformations that it can endure in its applications. Rubber must maintain its properties through a lifetime of dynamic stressing. Rubber needs to be resilient enough to perform its function even after being compressed, stretched or twisted thousands, or even millions of times.
2. Chemical. Rubber is often required to withstand a variety of chemicals. For applications in motors or generators, it must be resistant to gasoline and oils. Some industrial equipment will see a variety of harsh fluids such as cleaning solvents, acids or alkalis. Rubber tubes can have any number of harsh fluids pumped through them. Without proper formulation, a rubber compound could literally dissolve or crumble when faced with these corrosive elements.
3. Environmental. Not only does rubber have to stay flexible for thousands of cycles and possibly withstand corrosive chemicals, but it may also be required to perform in temperature extremes. A good example of this is a car sitting out in a Minnesota winter: during the night, the sealing O-Rings in its engine will be subjected to freezing temperatures. The O-Rings need to seal just as well when that cold engine first starts as they do when the engine reaches its peak temperature.

When these performance challenges are combined, it can create a tremendous (if not impossible) task for the rubber formulator.

The first step in rubber formulation is to develop detailed requirements relating to conditions that the rubber will need to withstand. It is fairly straight forward to identify the mechanical/dynamic requirements; however, chemical and environmental factors are commonly misunderstood. In this case a rubber formulation chemist with a great deal of experience is necessary. The chemist has seen a large variety of applications and can help identify what conditions a product could potentially experience out in the field.

After thoroughly understanding all the requirements, a rubber formulation chemist can derive a recipe of dozens components to create the compound. Rubber formulation is extremely complex and can draw upon literally hundreds of potential variables. Because of the scale of this complexity, there are not many tools and guides to analytically determine the exact formulation that will optimize performance for a given application. Achieving optimum performance with rubber is far more of an "art" than a "science", and requires experienced and knowledgeable formulators.

It is not uncommon for a number of different mixtures to be created and tested before the ideal product is developed. Temperature stressing, fluid immersion, elongation testing, tensile strength, flex-cycling, ozone aging and weathering can be performed in a lab, and this testing provides some indication of the product's performance. However, only testing that duplicates field conditions can be trusted to determine the acceptability of the formulation.

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