Study of Steel Tire Cord - Rubber Adhesion Build-up and Degradation

Rubber Division American Chemical Society
Symposium on Tire Technology at the Fall 176^th Technical Meeting
13-15 October 2009, Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania, USA.
Study of Steel Tire Cord – Rubber Adhesion Build-up and Degradation

Guy Buytaert^1ò, Hancheng Liang², Gabrielle Pax², Patricia Reis^1
1           NV Bekaert SA, Bekaert Technology Center, Bekaertstraat 2,
            B-8550 Zwevegem, Belgium
²                      NV Bekaert SA, Bekaert Asia R&D Center, Binjiang Economic Development Zone,  
            Jiangyin, Jiangsu, P.R.China  214434
<sup>ò Phone: +3256767065    /           Fax: +3256767038  /        email: guy.buytaert@bekaert.com

Brass-coated steel cords are extensively used as reinforcement material in radial tires, high-pressure hydraulic hoses and heavy duty conveyor belts. Bonding between rubber and steel cord is obtained via the formation of an adhesion interface layer during the curing process. The adhesion build-up mechanism involves chemical reaction of sulfurating species contained in the rubber skim compound and Cu of the brass coating, forming a Cu_xS layer at the rubber-brass interface.
An overview is given of recent scientific studies on adhesion of steel cord with rubber; with emphasis on those investigations which enhance the understanding of the mechanism of this adhesion system.
In addition, recent results are shown of mechanistic investigations of the adhesion interface, using complementary analytical techniques, such as X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and scanning electron microscopy/energy dispersive energy (SEM/EDX) analysis, both for adhesion build-up as for bond degradation.</sup>