• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.368-376
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• 2005

Coolant rubber hoses for automobile radiators can be degraded and thus failed due to the influence of contacting stresses of air and coolant liquid under thermal and mechanical loadings. In this study, for EPDM(ethylene-propylene diene monomer) rubber conventionally used as a radiator hose material the aging behaviors of the skin part due to thermo-oxidative and electro-chemical stresses were nondestructively evaluated. Through the thermo-oxidative aging test, it was shown that the surface hardness IRHD(International Rubber Hardness Degrees) of the rubber increased with a considerable reduction of failure strain. On account of the penetration of coolant liquid into the skin part the weight of rubber specimens degraded by electro-chemical degradation(ECD) test increased, whereas their. failure strain and IRHD hardness decreased largely. The penetration of coolant liquid seemed to induce some changes in inner structure and micro hardness distribution of the rubbers. Consequently, EPDM rubbers degraded by thermo-oxidative aging and ECD could be characterized nondestructively by micro-hardness and chemical structure analysis methods.