Test MethodMonitoring the vulcanization of elastomers: Comparison of curemeter and ultrasonic online control

The vulcanization of elastomeric materials has a high impact on the properties of the final product. Therefore, it is important to monitor and control this crosslinking process. A common technique to attain the necessary curing time is the use of a curemeter in accordance with ISO 6502 in order to determine the time for full cure of a sample with a standardized geometry. Based on this result and a lot of practical experience, the required curing time for a given product geometry is estimated. Within the scope of this work, a new analysis technique will be compared with the standard procedure. The ultrasonic online control employs ultrasound waves to measure the changes in material properties caused by vulcanization. For this study, a natural rubber compound with a conventional curing system was investigated by both techniques. It was found that the results of the ultrasonic technique show good agreement with the results of the curemeter.