This paper deals with the study of cellular rubbers, which were filled with silica nanofiller in order to optimize the rubber properties for given purposes. The rubber composites were produced with different concentrations of silica nanofiller at the same blowing agent concentration. The mechanical, sound absorption and thermal properties of the investigated rubber composites were evaluated. It was found that the concentration of silica filler had a significant effect on the above-mentioned properties. It was detected that a higher concentration of silica nanofiller generally led to an increase in mechanical stiffness and thermal conductivity. Conversely, sound absorption and thermal degradation of the investigated rubber composites decreased with an increase in the filler concentration. It can be also concluded that the rubber composites containing higher concentrations of silica filler showed a higher stiffness to weight ratio, which is one of the great advantages of these materials. Based on the experimental data, it was possible to find a correlation between mechanical stiffness of the tested rubber specimens evaluated using conventional and vibroacoustic measurement techniques. In addition, this paper presents a new methodology to optimize the blowing and vulcanization processes of rubber samples during their production.

Centre of Polymer Systems Tomas Bata University in Zlin Třída Tomáše Bati 5678 760 01 Zlin Czech Republic

Faculty of Mechanical Engineering VŠB Technical University of Ostrava 17 listopadu 15 2172 Poruba 708 00 Ostrava Czech Republic

Faculty of Technology Tomas Bata University in Zlin Nám T G Masaryka 275 760 01 Zlin Czech Republic

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