A timesaving characterization approach of rubber materials in compression using the finite element method (FEM) is presented. Rubber materials based on styrene butadiene rubber (SBR) are subjected to tensile and compression tests. Using the neo–Hooke, Mooney–Rivlin and Yeoh material models, a compression-equivalent deformation of the SBR samples is derived from the tensile testing. The simulated state is then compared with the experimental results obtained from compression measurement. The deviation in the strain energy density between the measurements and the simulations depends on the quality of the fitting.

Four styrene butadiene rubber (SBR) compounds were prepared to investigate the influence of the plasticizer polarity on the mechanical stability of the filler network using simultaneous mechanical and dielectric analysis. One compound was prepared without plasticizer and serves as a reference. The other three compounds were expanded with different plasticizers that have different polarities. Compared with an SBR sample without plasticizer, the conductivity of mechanically unloaded oil-extended SBR samples decreases by an order of magnitude. The polarity of the plasticizer shows hardly any influence because the plasticizers only affect the distribution of the filler clusters. Under static load, the dielectric properties seem to be oil-dependent. However, this behavior also results from the new distribution of the filler clusters caused by the mechanical damage and supported by the polarity grade of the plasticizer used. The Cole–Cole equation affirms these observations. The Cole–Cole relaxation time τ and thus, the position of maximal dielectric loss increases as the polarity of the plasticizer used is also increased. This, in turn, decreases the broadness parameter α implying a broader response function.