The Importance of Material Selection for High-Performance Customized Rubber Parts |

Custom rubber parts are widely used in aerospace, automobile manufacturing, medical devices and many other key areas, not only for its excellent physical properties, but also has vivid flexibility in design adaptability. However, material selection is the most critical factor affecting the performance of custom rubber parts. Material selection is directly related to whether a certain component can meet the application scenario with strict requirements such as high temperature resistance, corrosion resistance, high strength and so on. This paper will the significance of all kinds of customized high-performance rubber parts of the material selection on the four dimensions of performance requirements, use environment, cost effectiveness and feasibility, and the fourth dimension to make a scientific and reasonable material selection.

Functional requirements shall be realized tooà matching accuracy shall be measured.

High-speed imported custom-made rubber parts are often used at high performance indications, so the material selected must match accurately, otherwise, component function will not be realized.

1.1 Mechanical properties: Mechanical properties are the main indexes used to determine if rubber parts can withstand the working load and structural stability. For example, these seals, which should achieve the high strengths and high elastic modulus to withstand high-pressure environment; and high tear strength and impact resistance to cushion the impact drip loads. The performance parameters are as follows, which have to be taken into account while selecting the materials — tensile, elongation, tearing, hardness and elastic modulus.

1.2 Environmental Resistance：The rubber parts are often used to contact harsh environments, including high temperature, low temperature, corrosive media, ultraviolet radiation, etc. So environmental resistance is inevitable need for high performance rubber materials. Seals working in aeronautics are required to resist high temperatures, high negative temperature and radiation; Pipe joint working in chemical industry should withstand corrosive media like concentrated acid and alkali. Need to choose material degree, heat resistant, resistant to measures, anticorrosion and other parameters.

1.3 Special functions: Some application scenarios have special functional requirements for rubber parts, such as electrical conductivity, flame retardant, and air tightness. For example, conductive rubber used in electronic devices must have excellent electrical conductivity and electromagnetic shielding properties, and rubber pipes used in automobile engines must have good flame retardancy. The specific requirements of these special functions should be fully considered when selecting materials.

2nd: Environment use: Adaptation and Protection, keep long-term stability

When selecting materials, we should fully study the influence of environmental factors on the use of high-performance custom rubber parts with "complex, diverse" environment, so that all kinds of special rubber parts can operate stably for a long time.

The rubber material performance can be significantly affected by the temperature, which is one of the vital environmental parameters. In high temperature softening of rubber material, strength and aging speed, and low temperature hardening to brittle elasticity reduction. Thus, the choice of high temperature or low temperature resistant rubber materials is to choose the appropriate environment temperature range materials. High temperature rubber have such as fluorine rubber(FKM), silicone rubber (VMQ) can withstand high temperature environment of course also have low temperature rubber (some silicone rubber) can withstand low temperature environment.

Acid and alkali: This refers to rubber parts that are in contact with various chemical media, such as oil, solvent, acid and alkali. Resistance of different rubber materials to different chemical media is widely different. The choice of materials should be able to ensure that the rubber parts can resist the erosion of these chemical media in the use environment, so as to avoid swelling, dissolution, cracking and other phenomena. For example, nitrile butadiene rubber (NBR) has good oil resistance and is used in oil seals; fluorine rubber (FKM) has excellent resistance to various chemical media and is suitable for the chemical industry.

2.3 Physical environment: Ultraviolet radiation, mechanical wear, high pressure and other physical environmental factors. Whenever the rubber is exposed to higher temperature, sunlight or age cracking, the material gets aged; The material will wear and its strength will diminish due to mechanical wear; The material may creep and it will fail due to high pressure. It should be considered as well in terms of the selected materials whether the rubber parts used are resistant to ultraviolet radiation, wear resistant, resistant to creep, etc. for instance, for the physical property, EPDM has good resistance to weather and ultraviolet radiation, can be used in outdoor environment; Polyurethane rubber (PU) resistance to wear outstanding, can be used in high wear environment.

So, too, would, finally, cost effectiveness — that is, strike a proper balance between price and efficiency and get the optimal return from their investment

There must be special consideration for material selection, as they are cost-effective without compromising performance.Custom Rubber Parts High performance training data is available up to October 2023

3.1 Raw material price: There is a big gap in price between different rubber materials. For example, natural rubber ribbedPaste price is low but performance, Fluorine rubber price is high but performance is very good. Therefore, not only performance requirements and the cost budget must be considered the most cost-effective materials.

3 Production cost: Various rubber materials have different processing difficulty, which results in diverse processing 20190424 062610 technology and equipment required. Harsher to process materials will have an increased processing price. So it is when choose the material must consider the machinability of the material, choose the material that processing convenience and reduce the production cost.

3.3 Service life: High service life materials will also make the replacement cycle longer and save maintenance costs. And even though better-performing rubber compounds are often more expensive, they also last longer and can therefore reduce total cost of ownership. Therefore, the initial cost of the materials and cost for future maintenance has to be evaluated together and combinations of materials that are cost-effective have to be chosen.

Feasibility: Technology and process to secure manufacturability

Materials are chosen based on performance and costs, but no information of whether the rubber parts can actually be manufactured to meet the requirements is provided.

When it comes to production efficiency and product quality, machinability of rubber materials is a crucial influencing factor.【4.1】Processing Property Some rubber materials are not easy to process, and need special processing processes and equipment, which the production cycle is prolonged, cost is rising. So the materials of choice should consider the workability of the material, select the processable material processing is easy.

4.2 Mold designr Different performance of rubber materials has different requirements on mold. Some rubber material shrinkage rate is large, need special mold design. Therefore, when selecting materials, the influence on the die design should not be ignored and for the die design, you should choose the die materials that can reduce the difficulty of die design.

3 production equipment: some high-performance rubber material processing need special production equipment, whether the enterprise has the corresponding production equipment and technical conditions, this is the material selection must consider.

V. Conclusion

High-performance custom rubber designs is a four-step process, and the first step is selecting the materials, taking into account many factors such as performance needs, usage environment, cost-effectiveness and feasibility, confirms. We can ensure the stable and reliable work of customized rubber parts to adapt to various application scenarios, creating better value for enterprises only by relying on scientific and reasonable material selection.