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Reinforcement Of Elastomeric Rubber Using Carbon Fiber Laminates

Sivaraman R, Roseenid Teresa A, Siddanth S

The Elastomeric rubber is a good energy absorbing device with spring back effect. The effectiveness of any form of rubber depends on its strength and stiffness which cannot be varied beyond a certain limit by using chemical additives alone. So, the elastomeric rubber has to be reinforced by adding a material that is normally stronger and stiffer than rubber. In this paper, the usual problem of vulcanization of rubber was overcome by selecting carbon fibers as the filler material. The unidirectional property of carbon fibers gives it the ability to be oriented in any desired direction, thus imparting required properties. The material was modeled as a composite beam structure initially using the ANSYS software and dynamic analysis was performed to find out the fundamental mode of vibration. A Test specimen was then fabricated according to ASTM standards and experimental investigations were carried out. Mechanical properties of the material such as tensile strength, compression strength, flexure strength and impact strength were obtained from the experimental investigation. The test results of the carbon fiber laminated elastomeric rubber were then compared with ordinary elastomeric rubber with usual additives and it was found to be superior in all aspects.