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Rubber properties, thickness and resilience

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ella0509

Mechanical
May 19, 2004
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Hi,

I'm new to designing with rubber materials and I'm trying to get a better basic understanding, or directions to good further reading that would assist in this field.

As an application example, I wonder whether anyone could shed some light on the following:

A metallic light post is fitted with a reasonably heavy public information sign (such as bus timetable) via correctly tensioned steel banding straps. Assuming all creep, stress relaxation and other longer term performance issues of the strap / sign interfaces are ignored and again assuming a frost of sufficient magnitude causes the OD of the light post to reduce enough such that the sign could slide down, thereby resulting in an application failure.

As a design improvement, it is proposed that a rubber sleeve of sufficient thickness and suitable mechanical property be placed between the pole and the sign / straps that would accommodate this OD reduction due to its resilience property (and possible friction improvement) and thus prevent sliding.

Can anyone recommend design methods, guidance or other applicable data that could be employed in ensuring the design of such an improved system would be valid - i.e. what rubber material properties are most important and how thick vs the OD contraction would it be?
 
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