Abstract
The effects of carbon black on the material properties and the fatigue life of the carbon-black filled natural rubbers were investigated. Different kinds of carbon blacks resulted in different fatigue lives, hysteresis, and critical J-values. It was noticed that the hysteresis was inversely proportional to the difference between DBPA and CTAB, and the critical J-value was almost the same regardless of the length of a precrack. In addition, different kinds of carbon blacks resulted in different fracture morphologies, and micro-scale and macro-scale roughnesses. The critical J-value was proportional to the micro-scale roughness. and it seemed relate to the size distribution of carbon black particles. By reviewing all the experimental data. it was finally noticed that the logarithmic value of the fatigue life could be linearly expressed by a multiplication of the critical J-value and the logarithmic value of the hysteresis.