Identification of Tribological Properties of Vulcanized Rubber Using a Pin on Disc Tribometer for Abrasion Testing

Vulcanized rubber which is commonly used for vehicle tire material is generally in the form of compound rubber derived from pure rubber reinforced with carbon black and silica. Based on hardness, there are 3 types of compounds on the market, namely hard, medium and soft. This study only discusses the performance of hard compound, soft compound and as a comparison, rubber for carpet materials. The performance that is very important to analyze is the tribological properties of rubber, namely contact capacity and abrasion resistance. For applications in vehicle tires, contact capacity is related to braking capacity while abrasion resistance is related to the age of the tire. The tensile test is carried out first to determine the strength of the material, then the tribological test is carried out using a pin on disc type tribometer. The tribological test was carried out with variations of the indenter (pin), namely ball indenter and blade indenter types with load variations up to a certain number of revolutions. Tests were carried out to find the friction coefficient and rubber wear level during the abrasion test. In general, hard type vulcanized rubber has better abrasion resistance than soft type. But on the other hand, the hard type of vulcanized rubber has a lower friction coefficient or capacity than the soft type.