ABSTRACT
Swelling in elastomer was extensively being studied by Flory (1942) and Treloar (1975) where the solvent-solid mixture is considered to be a single, homogenized continuum body rather than two different media. Following this non-mixture theory, numerous studies on modeling the coupled deformation-diffusion in elastic solid were developed (Baek and Srinivasa 2004; Hong et al. 2008; Chester and Anand 2010). Note that from these existing studies, none of the model takes into account the effect of filler content. While filler is an inevitable item in the manufacturing of elastomer product, the particular role of filler in elastomer is often of highly debate. Many consider
1 INTRODUCTION
Elastomer is a common item encountered in our daily life. The unique behavior of elastomer which is capable of large and recoverable deformation makes it a remarkable item in various field. Due to its highly flexibility applications, elastomer is often being subjected to cyclic mechanical deformation while concurrently in contact with solvent (Ch’ng et al. 2013). Under such situation, the small molecules from the solvent can diffuse into the polymer network, causing the network to swell. The diffusion of a large amount of solvent molecule into the solid elastomer leads to the formation of a complex system which is also known as polymeric gels.
