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
Rubber toughening like matrix crazing, can account for a large fraction of the increase in energy absorption of a toughened polymer. Evidence of shear yielding in a toughened polymer can be seen where there is "necking, drawing or orientation hardening." Shear yielding will result if rubber particles act as stress concentrators and initiate volume-expansion through crazing, debonding and cavitation, to halt the formation of cracks. Overlapping stress fields from one particle to its neighbor will contribute to a growing shear-yielding region. The closer the particles are the more overlap and the larger shear-yielding region. Shear yielding is an energy absorbing process in