Course info

This course covers topics on the viscoelastic concept and rubber elasticity, raw rubber properties including plasticity, plastic retention index, and Mooney viscosity. The course also covers types of rubber including natural rubber, modified natural rubber, SBR, EPDM, IR, BR, CR, NBR, CSM etc with their properties and applications. It also discusses rubber curing and kinetic vulcanization; curemeter and curing characteristics such as scorch and cure time. It also covers about crosslinks density measured using Mooney‐Rivlin and Flory‐ Rehner equations and their effects on properties, sulfur vulcanization and other types of vulcanization systems such as peroxide, moisture, radiation etc. Fillers and reinforcement. This course also covers the different types of filler, factors that determine the degree of reinforcement, the importance of filler dispersion and various reinforcement theories. It also includes the preparation and properties of rubber/clay nano composites, vulcanizate testing and interpretation: stress‐strain, hardness, tearing, compression set, ageing, fatigue, creep, stress relaxation, etc.

Course Outcomes:
CO1 - Able to describe the fundamentals of rubber/elastomer processing, compounding ingredients, and vulcanization systems (PO1)
CO2 - Able to describe different types of elastomers and fillers in rubber/ elastomer properties and product applications (PO1)
CO3 - Able to identify the importance of various testing procedures and analyze the suitability of the testing for different types of rubber/ elastomer properties (PO2)