Rubber technology Rubber technology Rubber Technology is the subject dealing with the transformation of rubbers or elastomers into useful products, such as automobile tires, rubber mats and, exercise rubber stretching bands. The materials includes latex, natural rubber, synthetic rubber and other polymeric materials, such as thermoplastic elastomers. Rubber processed through such methods are components of a wide range of items. Most rubber products are vulcanized, a process which involves heating with a small quantity of sulphur (or equivalent cross-linking agent) so as to stabilise the polymer chains, over a wide range of temperature. This discovery was made by Charles Goodyear in the
Toughening Toughening Toughening refers to improving the fracture resistance of a given material. Crack propagation has an associated irreversible work, which is related to a material's toughness. Designing against this crack propagation leads to toughening the material. For the case of a ductile material such as a metal, this toughness is typically proportional to the fracture stress and strain as well as the gauge length of the crack. The plane strain toughness in a metal is given by: where The toughness of a brittle material is typically twice the surface energy associated with the formation of the fracture surfaces. There are