Effect of organo-clay on properties and mechanical behavior of Fluorosilicone rubber

High performance Fluorosilicone rubber (FS)/organoclay (OC) nanocomposites have been prepared by a melt compounding process. The results of mechanical investigation revealed that Young’s modulus and hardness of FS rubber are improved with introduction of OCs while an inverse trend was observed for elongation at break and tensile strength. Eight constitutive models, Yeoh, Arruda-Boyce, Mooney-Rivilen, Neo-Hookean, Marlow, polynomial, Van der Waals, and Odgen were studied to investigate the stress-strain behavior of FS/OC nanocomposites. It was concluded that the ability of these models to predict the true behavior of the FS/OC samples directly depends on the amount of OC. Two modified Halpin-Tsai and inverse rule of mixtures theories were applied to evaluate the dependence of Young modulus of nanocomposites on volume fraction of OCs. The experimental data were employed for determining modified models parameters as well as for validating models. It was shown that, OCs can also play a fundamental role in controlling volume shrinkage of FS after cure. FS was proved that still retain its specific properties as well as the fuel and thermal resistance after introduction of OCs. Combination of these results verifies that incorporation of OCs can provide tailored mechanical properties without sacrificing fuel and thermal resistance of FS elastomers.