New Product Specification Development Process for Silicone Rubber

Abstract

New product specification development process for silicone rubber.

The process of developing a new grade of rubber often consists of identifying a set of target properties to meet a specific range of applications.

The rubber chemist then uses their knowledge of the property / ingredient relationship, design of experiment and, working with production engineering, creates a material which through laboratory and pilot experimentation is believed to meet the set of target properties.

Despite the best efforts to meet the target specification, in reality, not every property will be in a state of statistical control. It's only after a significant number of batches of been produced and tested that a truly robust specification can be derived from actual test data. This paper describes the analysis performed on KCC's improved extrusion grade 60 durometer rubber to develop appropriate values for the sales specification. It will also briefly describe the silicone manufacturing process used and review the control applied at each of the key intermediate steps which lead to high temperature vulcanizing (HTV) rubber with properties which are in good statistical control. Highly consistent materials are essential particularly for continuous processes such as tubing extrusion utilizing KCC HTV SH 1061.