Mechanical properties of composite material using natural rubber with epoxy resin

Abstract EN

In this paper the mechanical properties of three types of composite materials using natural rubber vulcanized, vulcanized and reinforced rubber have been investigated.

The composite material using natural rubber and epoxy resin is manufactured by three methods ; first method is mixing the natural rubber with epoxy resin by special mixer without any additional materials, the second method is to make a layer of rubber then coating it with a layer of epoxy resin and bonding using the rolling process.

The third one is use in the natural rubber as a matrix material and using additional materials like carbon black in specific ratio and mix with them the epoxy resin in five ratios (20 %, 40 %, 60 %, 80 %, and 100 %).

The first and second methods failed because composite material produced was inhomogeneous while the third method succeeded and the composite material was homogenous.

Compression and hardness tests have been done on the resulting composite material of the third method and from the result it is found that the composite material has good properties and these properties improved by increasing the ratio of epoxy resin to the natural rubber.

Then the mechanical properties of three types of composite material using natural rubber vulcanized, vulcanized and reinforced rubber have been investigated.

Each type was coated with six percentages of epoxy resin (0 %, 20 %, 40 %, 60 %, 80 %, and 100 %).

The values of Young’s modulus, yield stress, tensile strength and yield strain which were calculated for each case and for all percentages of epoxy resin.

It is concluded that the properties of the new composite material using natural rubber is much better than the properties of the pure natural rubber and the increasing in the percentage of epoxy resin in vulcanized rubber leads to a decrease in Young’s modulus and increasing percentage of epoxy resin in vulcanized rubber and reinforced rubber leads to an increase in Young modulus.