Durability Prediction of NR/BR and NR/SBR Blend Tread Compounds using Tear Fatigue Analyser

The present work aims to characterize fatigue crack growth (FCG) behaviour for comparative durability prediction of NR/BR- and NR/SBR-blend based compounds. The influence of strain, temperature, r-ratio and waveform was studied to simulate realistic service life condition by using a Tear and Fatigue Analyser (TFA). Both of these blends show higher FCG rate at higher temperature, but the effect is comparatively higher in the NR/SBR compound. The influence of r-ratio towards FCG rate was found to be very less in NR/BR blend, whereas NR/SBR-blend shows considerable decrease in FCG rate at positive initial tension (r-ratio). The higher FCG rate was observed in pulse mode compared to sine mode in both the blends.