Design, Preparation And Properties Research Of Rubber Composite Materials For Winter Tire Tread

Due to its benefit in improving vehicle handling performance in snow and ice weather, winter tire is widely used in cold places. Serving as the most important factor of measuring tire properties, ice traction is mainly determined by the composition of the tire tread materials. Since the design and preparation of tire tread materials are significant, this thesis emphasizes on three factors-rubber matrix, filler system, resin-to design and fabricate winter tire tread compounds. At the same time, the relative properties of the compounds are also being investigated to see their potential applications in tire industry.(1) This experiment studies the relationship between tire properties and rubber matrixs differing in various weight ratios of natural rubber, butadiene rubber and emulsion polymerized styrene-butadiene rubber. The results showed that NR/BR/ESBR composites have better physical properties and wet skid resistance. Meanwhile they exhibit higher loss compliance peaks and wider range peaks than NR/BR composites, which indicates better ice skid resistance.(2) This experiment studies microhardness of rubber surfaces with different fillers (carbon black, silica and Nano-alumina) and relationships of compound properties with different nano-alumina loadings as well as with silica/carbon black employing in the same volume fractions. The results showed that the microhardness of rubber composites filled with Nano-alumina are higher than that with silica or carbon black. When the rubber is sliding on ground glass surface, the wet skid resistance is improved with the increasing of nano-alumina. Otherwise, when sliding on asphalt pavement surface, the average structure depth of the asphalt pavement plays a main role in affecting the wet skid resistance rather than microhardness. Under the same filler volume fraction, when the amount of silica was 60 phr used in composites, it has a better wet skid resistance and ice skid resistance.(3) This experiment explores the relationship between resin loadings and dynamic properties and the application of low molecular weight resin and environment-friendly aromatic oil in tread compounds. The results showed that when the amounts of terpene resin T-100 was more than 2 phr used in the composites, it has a significant effect on peak height and peak width of loss compliance cures. Comparing with the environment friendly aromatic oil filled rubber, C5 petroleum resin filling rubber has better wet skid resistance and ice skid resistance without losing rolling resistance. Base on the excellent properties of composites filled with C5 petroleum resin, we studied the influence of C5 petroleum resin and two kinds of piperylene resin (TL-1000 resin and TL-L1100 resin) on properties of winter tire treads. Compared to the non-filling composites, the flow properties of composites are improved and the composites filled with TL-L1100 resin exhibit the best wet skid resistance and ice skid resistance.(4) In this part, tire tread composites filled with resin and nano-alumina are designed and studied. The results showed that compared with only adding resin filling composites, wet skid resistance improved and ice skid resistance are consistent.