Abstract:
Scrap tires are internationally recognized as “black pollution”. Tire reclaimed rubber (TRR) made from scrap tires, as a recyclable polymer material, can greatly improve the utilization efficiency of tire materials, reduce environmental pollution, save energy, and now has become a green environmental protection industry vigorously supported by the state, the use of retreaded rubber in tire retreading can be The use of retreaded rubber in tire retreading can greatly improve the recycling life of used tire materials, however, the deterioration of its tribological properties brings great uncertainty to the wide application of these retreaded tires. The mechanical shear induction method was used to prepare retreaded tire composite rubber materials, and the effects of different ratios of retreaded rubber added to styrene-butadiene rubber/natural rubber (SBR/NR) on the mechanical properties of the composite rubber materials and on the tribological properties of the composite rubber under different working conditions (load, speed, and slip rate) were studied, and the tribological properties of the retreaded rubber materials were analyzed on the nano-scale using the molecular dynamics model. The mechanism was analyzed from the nanoscale using a molecular dynamics model. The results showed that the use of a small amount of TRR resulted in the deterioration of the mechanical properties of SBR/NR/TRR composites, the reduction of wear resistance, and the increase of the coefficient of friction. When 5 or 10 parts of retreaded rubber were added to the retreaded tire materials, the constant tensile stress and hardness of the blends increased, and the tensile strength and elongation at break decreased, but all the physicochemical properties of the composite rubber materials were in accordance with the national standards. With the further increase of TRR content to 15 parts, its elongation at break decreases the trend of gradual and sharp changes, at this time the elongation at break was no longer in line with national standards (less than 420%). Therefore, adding 10 parts of TRR (TRR
10) was the most cost-effective adhesive blend. When the load, speed and slip rate conditions are raised to 500%, the impact of each condition on the amount of TRR
10 wear was roughly the same, were about 20%; slip rate on the temperature rise of the greatest impact, followed by load, speed was the smallest; speed changes mainly affect the size of the Schallamach pattern of the rubber tire tread, while the load and slip rate changes on its wear surface is mainly reflected in the tread wear pattern. A molecular dynamics friction model of SBR/NR/TRR composite vulcanized rubber-aluminum substrate was developed, and it was found that the radial distribution function (RDF), root-mean-square displacement (MSD), relative atomic concentration (RC), and temperature (Temp) of the TRR10 composite rubber were higher than those of the rubber material without added TRR by 3.2%, 11.1%, 12.7%, and 10.6%, respectively. Compared with the composite rubber materials without added retreaded rubber, the increase of actual contact area at the friction interface of the composite rubber by the addition of TRR, the increased of contact temperature, and the enhancement of the molecular chain mobility and adhesion are the mechanisms that lead to the deterioration of the performance of retreaded rubber materials. The results of the study provide a scientific reference for improving the tribological properties of retreaded rubber composite tire materials and realizing their industrial application.