Elastomer characteristics

The use of elastomers in various industries such as automotive, aeronautics, aerospace, transport, construction, mining, machine tools, petrochemicals, etc., is subject to numerous stringent specifications and standards requiring a wide range of properties:

• good behaviour at various temperatures ;

• inertness to aggressive fluids (oils, greases, solvents, etc.) and chemicals (acids, bases, salts, etc.);

• ozone and weather resistance ;

• high mechanical properties (breaking, tearing, abrasion, etc.);

• good ageing under the service conditions envisaged.

While it's relatively easy to meet a specific requirement, it's more complicated to simultaneously satisfy a set of sometimes incompatible properties, while respecting the quality/price ratio linked to the intended use. The formulator will therefore have to find compromise solutions to meet a specific requirement.