Interpretation of Filler Networking of Loaded Rubbers via Mastercurves

Dynamic mechanical analysis at different temperatures and frequencies of Carbon Black and Silica loaded rubbers is carried out and mastercurves are created. For higher filler loadings poor coincidence of the isothermal curves can be observed. In this case no proper mastercurves can be constructed by horizontal shifting only. A vertical shift factor is introduced in order to get proper mastercurves of the storage as well as loss modulus of the highly loaded rubber systems by means of additional subsequent vertical shifting of the isothermals. The meaning of this vertical shift factor is discussed and this treatment leads to a filler network agglomeration energy which can be interpreted as a measure of the thermal activated part of the filler network.