ABSTRACT
The study of fatigue crack propagation in elastomers is of major importance, especially for tire industry, to improve and also estimate the products durability. In the past, many authors, by means of different fatigue crack propagation tests (see a relevant test method in Young 1986), evaluated various factors that affect the fatigue crack growth in rubbers. Among them, they identified for example the polymer type (natural rubber vs. synthetic rubbers), mechanical loading parameters (frequency, waveform, loading ratio…), fillers, temperature and thermal ageing, as parameters impacting the crack growth rate (Young 1986, Kim & Lee 1994, Lake 1995, Kaang et al. 2006, Papadopoulos et al. 2008, Andreini et al. 2010). However, to the author knowledge, none of those studies mentioned the influence of antioxidants, even if they play a critical part as chemical products in the rubber formulation concerning industrial parts often exposed to self-heating (tires, antivibration components…).
