ABSTRACT
This study provides an analysis of the relationships between the curing parameters (curing time and temperature, curing pressure), the crosslinks types and densities of the vulcanized network, and the fatigue and crack propagation properties. Numerous conditions of curing time, temperature and pressure have been applied to manufacture fatigue and propagation samples under well-mastered processing conditions. Sequential swelling tests provide access to the influence of the process parameters on the crosslink density and on the different types of sulfur crosslinks. Then, cyclic tension tests under a null load ratio (i.e. no reinforcement effect) on axisymmetric notched samples and crack propagation tests on pure shear samples provide the evolutions of stiffness, fatigue lifetime and cyclic crack propagation rate with the process parameters. Finally, the correlations between the features of the sulfur network (global crosslink density, density of monosulfidic, disulfidic or polysulfidic links) and the fatigue and crack propagation properties are highlighted and discussed.
