Influence of compound composition and load conditions on the failure behavior of elastomers

The estimation of lifetime of elastomer components and their behavior in ca se of damage initiation and propagation is one of the main tasks for compou nd development, A way to characterize the compound toughness against crack initiation and propagation is the use of fracture mechanics methods, The pa per shortly introduces the J-Integral method for static loading and possibi lities of evaluation of the Tear Fatigue Analyser for dynamic loading. For different polymers and compositions the failure behavior will be shown for both kinds of loading.