| dc.description.abstract | When rubber is subjected to a load, deformation will occur in the form of transverse
compression. At a microscopic level, the bond structure in the rubber is transformed from
one equilibrium state, corresponding to the unloaded rubber, to another, corresponding to
the loaded rubber. As in any transformation process, this takes a certain amount of time
called transient response time. This paper presents a simple fibre sensor configuration to
experimentally monitor transient response of the loaded rubber bar at a desired point in the
rubber at a constant temperature is presented. For this purpose, a coil of polymer optical
fibre (POF) with cross-section diameter 10 mm was inserted into a cylindrical rubber rod
with cross-section diameter of 3 mm and thickness of 2 cm. Five different loads (2 kg, 2.5 kg,
3 kg, 4 kg and 7 kg) were carefully placed on the cylindrical rubber rod and the resulted
change in transmitted light intensity through the fibre sensor was recorded. It was shown
that transient response time is load mass dependent which increases with increasing load.
Transient response time was also measured as function of depth, it decreases with the
increase of the depth, i.e., vertical distance from rubber rod surface. In addition to static
loading, transmission curve resulted from dynamic loading was also demonstrated. Based
on these results we suggest that smart rubber might be simply formed by sandwiching
optical fibre coil into one or more desired points in the rubber bar. | en_US |
