Rupture of Rubber. VII. Effect of Rate of Extension in Tensile Tests

There are few published measurements on the effect of rate of extension in tensile rupture tests on rubber vulcanizates. The most extensive data on a single vulcanizate are those of Dogadkin and Sandomirskii˘ and of Smith. These measurements were made on GR-S gum vulcanizates and covered a similar range of rates of extension, from about 0.02 to 20%/sec. Ring specimens were used in both cases, and tensile strength and breaking extension were measured over a wide temperature range. Villars has made tensile strength and breaking extension measurements on double dumbbell specimens of several gum and filled vulcanizates extended at various rates in the range 10,000 to 100,000%/sec. Kainradl and Handler have reported tensile strength measurements for several filled vulcanizates, obtained with dumbbell specimens extended at four different rates of extension covering a range from about 1 to 100,000%/sec. All these results indicate that tensile strength and breaking extension can vary appreciably with the rate of extension of the specimen. Complete load-extension curves are not given in any of these papers. In the present paper an autographic method is described for obtaining the load-extension curves of ring specimens extended at various rates from about 0.1 to 2000%/sec. Results showing the effect of the rate of extension on the tensile strength and breaking extension and on the load-extension curve are given for GR-S vulcanizates. The data were obtained primarily for the comparisons of tear and tensile rupture measurements given in a subsequent paper (Part VIII).