Natural rubber has a good potential to be used as a material for the development of wave energy converters (WECs). Generally, rubber has the ability to withstand very large strains without permanent deformation or fracture and is not much affected by exposure to water. This makes it ideal for applications related to wave energy converter (WECs). However, there is a need to predict the efficiency of performance over the full lifetime of such an application given that WECs will represent large, expensive and novel products that must remain operational in an at-sea environment for 10-15 years. Pertaining to that criterion, fracture mechanics of rubber is an important aspect as well as strain-history and environmental effects. The objective of this study is to gain a fundamental understanding of several factors that contribute to service lifetime: the effect of ozone and oxidation, stress-strain behaviour including hysteresis, set, and cyclic stress relaxation, mechanical fatigue and the possible role of poorly dispersed filler agglomerates in nucleating failure. The work includes studies of the effect of protective coating layers and of naturally aged rubber artefacts using a mathematical model for diffusion limited oxidation. A literature review has been performed to address rubber science and associated technology, including, the durability of rubber. Experiments encompassing the effect of ozone, cyclic stress-strain behaviour and crack growth & fatigue of rubber were performed to interpret the relevant properties for the consideration of the development of wave energy converters. New parameters for characterizing macro dispersion in rubber are introduced in an attempt to seek a correlation with the life span of rubbers. All these observations and outcomes give an opportunity to enhance our understanding of the factors that determine long-term mechanical properties of rubber, to the general benefit of rubber science and technology.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:588881 |
| Date | January 2013 |
| Creators | Bin Kamaruddin, Shamsul |
| Contributors | Hearn, Grant |
| Publisher | University of Southampton |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/360430/ |
Page generated in 0.0027 seconds