A new study titled ‘Determination of the most significant rubber components influencing the Shore hardness of natural rubber (NR) using various statistical methods’ has been published in an open access journal (IF 4.0), under Econ-led polymeric materials RDI project. Three of the authors are experts at Econ.
In the paper, the authors investigate the effect and influence of natural rubber (NR) components on Shore hardness by statistical analysis based on experimental data from literature. Three of the seven authors of the study are engineering simulation experts at Econ. László Kovács, Econ’s Composites Guru, Senior Simulation Engineer and R&D Project Manager, Gergely Erdős, Econ’s Simulation Group Leader, and Szabolcs Berezvai, lecturer at BME (Budapest University of Technology and Economics), expert and contributor of the rubber module of the RDI project related to the published study. The other four authors of the study are academic researchers participating in the consortium of the joint RDI project of Econ Engineering and the University of Pannonia. Their names are given at the beginning of the publication.
The publication’s analysis results confirm that carbon black has a significant effect on the Shore hardness of rubbers, while quartz (SiO2) has no significance in that aspect. In Sulphur-based rubbers, Sulphur was found to be a key factor in rubber Shore hardness via cross-linking. It was also confirmed that while softeners contribute to better dispersing and mixing of the constituents, they can also directly soften the vulcanized rubber. The statistical method presented in this study can be applied to the development of rubbers in industrial practice, including the identification of the key components affecting the different mechanical properties of the rubber.
Abstract
Manufacturers use a large number of components in the production of modern rubber products. The selection of the constituents of the rubber recipe is primarily determined by the purpose of use. The different
t fields of applications of rubbers require the presence of appropriate mechanical properties. In this respect, it can be useful to know which substances forming the rubber recipe have significant influence on the different mechanical properties. In this study, the statistical analysis of the influence of rubber components on the Shore hardness of natural rubber (NR) is proposed based on literature review.
Based on the literature data, various statistical analyses, like linear regression, constrained linear regression, Ridge regression, Ridge sparse regression, and binary classification decision trees were performed to determine which rubber components have the most significant effect on the hardness. In the statistical analyses, the effect of a total of 42 constituents of rubber compound on Shore hardness was investigated. Most of the applied statistical methods confirmed that the traditional frequently used rubber components, such as carbon black and sulfur, have a primary effect on the Shore hardness. However, the substances forming the rubber compound that are not widely used in practice or newly developed components appear differently in the lists of significant additives obtained by the different statistical methods.
