Two Rapra Review Reports focus on key aspects of manufacturing with rubber, includes a thorough overview of how to successfully bond rubber to a given substrate.


Rapra has just published two new Rapra Review Reports focusing on key aspects of manufacturing with rubber. No single adhesive can provide the needed levels of adhesion and environmental resistance to all polymers. Even when bonding a particular elastomer, the adhesive of choice can vary depending upon the compounding of the rubber including the cure system, the environmental application of the bonded assembly, the substrate to which the rubber is going to be bonded, the moulding method and the geometry of the part.

Other factors affecting adhesive selection might include colour, conductivity, and means of application.

Bonding Elastomers: A Review of Adhesives and Processes offers a thorough overview of how to successfully bond rubber to a given substrate in the manufacture of quality rubber engineered components: substrate preparation, selection of adhesive, adhesive preparation, adhesive application, moulding conditions, testing and bond failure analysis, future trends Developments that have taken place in mixing equipment over the last eight or nine years have been significant, with almost all major machinery makers having made innovations of one type or another.

Some developments have been as small as re-profiling rotors of relatively conventional design.

Others have been the introduction of completely new rotor designs, both intermeshing and tangential.

Mixing of Vulcanisable Rubbers and thermoplastic elastomers provides historical background against which the latest developments are set.

The report considers batch and continuous systems, containing details of key developments by equipment manufacturers, with the different concepts discussed in layman's terms.

It also summarises the range of mixing techniques applied in the industry.

The quality of rubber mixing depends not only on the mixer itself, but also on control of the whole mixing process, from raw materials to the moment the compound leaves the mill room for further processing, and this review offers the relevant developments in drive, hopper arrangement, temperature measurement systems and discharge systems.

All Rapra Review Reports are supported by an indexed section containing several hundred key references and abstracts selected from the Rapra Polymer Library database.