Oxidative ageing of elastomers: experiment and modelling

Abstract During an extensive test programme at the Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und prüfung, material property changes of EPDM O-rings were investigated different ageing times and two temperatures $$125\,^{\circ }\,\hbox {C}$$ 125 ∘ C $$150\,^{\circ }\, \hbox 150 . To exclude possible diffusion-limited oxidation (DLO) effects that can distort data, IRHD microhardness measurements taken over cross section compressed O-rings. Continuous stress relaxation on samples free DLO effects. The additional effect physical processes to irreversible chemical ones during a long-term thermal exposure is quantified by analysis compression set under various conditions. By combining experimental methods, characteristic relative degradation determined. On basis microphysically motivated model takes into account reversible was developed. parameter identification strategy based our investigations homogeneously aged elastomer simulated results are in good agreement with experiments.