Abstract
Material characteristics and lifetime evaluation are very important in design procedure to assure the safety and reliability of the rubber components. In this paper, the NBR compound was prepared by sulfur-cure system, and was used in predicting the lifetime of rubber gasket made by the compound. The accelerated material aging was investigated at different temperatures at 120, 140 and 160 degrees C and aging time from 3 hours to 600 hours at 5, 6, 7 vol %. of H2SO4 concentrations The rubber strips were placed in acid solution using pyrex glass tube. Both ends of pyrex glass tube were sealed to avoid evaporation of solution during heating at given time. The material test and accelerated acid-heat aging test were carried out to predict the useful life of NBR rubber gasket for a fuel cell stack. In order to investigate the effects of acid-heat aging on the properties of the NBR, tensile strength, elongation at break, hardness and crosslink-density were measured. The tensile strength decreases as the H2SO4 concentrations and temperature increase. Results were evaluated using Arrhenius equation.