Impact of elastomer microstructure on the local mobility in linear regime
Résumé
Adhesion and tribology studies performed on rubbers used for tires application have shown that they are submitted to mechanical loadings in two different frequency-temperature windows: a so-called ``traction'' domain and a so called ``rolling resistance'' domain. Depending on the elastomer chemistry and processing, an alpha' relaxation can occur at higher temperature than the main relaxation, and can have a quite negative effect on the rolling resistance. In this study, it is evidenced that this alpha' relaxation is due either to the relaxation of free chains or the relaxation of the chain ends belonging to the elastomer network.