Reliability Evaluation of Rubber Component

The rubber material properties and useful lifetime evaluation are very important in design procedures to ensure the safety and reliability of rubber components. This study examined experimentally the characteristics and useful lifetime prediction of rubber components for an elevator cabin. Material tests and accelerated heat-aging tests were conducted. The rubber material coefficient was obtained by curve fitting of uni-axial tension, pure shear and equi-biaxial tension test data. To assess and predict the useful lifetime of natural rubber component, the changes in mechanical properties were determined under accelerated aging conditions. The rubber was aged at temperatures ranging from 70 degrees C to 100 degrees C for between 1 and 60 days. This paper presents a general approach for correlating the accelerated aging results with aging under service conditions using an Arrhenius methodology. Several useful lifetime prediction equations for the rubber component were proposed using the rubber material and component test. The predicted useful lifetime of the rubber component for an elevator cabin agreed fairly well with the experimentally determined values.