Correlation between tire durability and rubber oxygen consumption

As an important part of vehicle safety, tire durability has been paid close attention to which results from various factors including high temperature thermal oxidation of rubber compounds. In tire laboratories, an oven aging test is usually employed to induce severe thermal oxidation under a temperature up to 65°C. However, it is extremely difficult to perform real-time measurement of rubber oxygen consumption under high temperature to study the whole process. Therefore, with experimental property measurement of rubber compound as input, a tire Finite Element Analysis model based on Fick’s Law and Diffusion Limited Oxidation was built to simulate the tire oven aging process. The model outputs both global and local oxygen consumption of a tire which was then correlated with experimental durability hours. The result shows a positive effect of reduced global oxygen consumption on tire durability up to a threshold value below which tire durability is not strongly dependent on oxygen consumption. Local oxygen consumption of several key components including tread, belt, carcass, sidewall, and innerliner was also correlated with experimental tire durability hours and exhibits different patterns due to its unique locations and material properties.