The purpose of this program was to select and develop new elastomers, and from them to establish a capability of producing high-speed, Type VII aircraft tires, taking advantage of the potential increases in safety, reliability and economy offered by these new elastomers over natural rubber. An added advantage to be realized in using synthetic rubber manufactured domestically would be the independence, during national emergency, from reliance on natural rubber imported from Southeast Asian sources. The synthetic formulations that were developed included tire inner liner, casing, sidewall and tread compounds as major replacement as well as bead filler, bead insulation, bead flipper and bead chafer components. In all cases, the materials were easily processed in the factory during preparation of materials and manufacture of the test tires. Dynamic performance of these test tires was essentially equivalent to that of tires produced with natural rubber materials. The development work concluded that C1S-1,4 polyisoprene was suitable as a direct replacement for natural rubber in each of the elastomer compounds used in the test tires. Performance tests on the aircraft tire dynamometer confirmed the suitability of these materials in this application. (Author)
NETL
