Rubber Material-Model Characterization for Coupled Thermo-Mechanical Vulcanization Foaming Processes

A novel experimental methodology is developed for the characterization of the vulcanization and foaming processes of an ethylene propylene diene (EPDM) cellular rubber and for establishing the relationship of its physical and mechanical property evolution with vulcanization and foaming process temperature. To establish this relationship, the vulcanization and foaming reaction kinetics and their coupling have been determined, as well as important parameters in the behaviour of the material, such as conductivity, specific heat capacity and coefficients of expansion and foaming. This aforementioned strategy allows the setting of a material model that can be implemented into finite-element (FE) codes to reproduce the material changes during the vulcanization and foaming processes. The material model developed reproduces with enough accuracy the coupling of chemical kinetics of vulcanization and foaming reactions. The results provided by the numerical material model fit a similar trend, and values with an accuracy of 90–99% to those observed in the experiments conducted for the determination of the cellular rubber expansion in function of the temperature. Moreover, the cellular rubber expansion values agree with the structural analysis of vulcanized and foamed samples at different isothermal temperatures and with the proportional loss of mechanical properties in the function of the vulcanization and foaming degree.