Viscoelasticity evaluation of rubber by surface reflection of supersonic wave

The main characteristic of rubber is a viscoelasticity. So it is important to research the characteristic of the viscoelasticity of the high frequency band for the friction between a rubber material and the hard one with roughness, for instance, the tire and the road. As for the measurement of the viscoelasticity of rubber, DMA (dynamic mechanical analysis) is general. However, some problems are pointed out to the measurement of the high frequency band by DMA. Then, we evaluated the viscoelasticity characteristic by the supersonic wave measurement. However, attenuation of rubber is large, and when the viscoelasticity is measured by the supersonic wave therefore, it is inconvenient and limited in a past method by means of bottom reflection. In this report, we tried the viscoelasticity evaluation by the method of using complex surface reflection coefficient and we compared with the friction coefficient under wide-range friction velocity. As a result, some relationships had been found for two properties. We report the result that character of viscoelasticity of rubber was comparable to friction coefficient.