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What is Rubber ?
What is Rubber ?
No one is ignorant of rubber and rubber products. Rubber has, in fact, become an indispensable part of everyone's life. So, lets know about the different types of rubber used for making industrial rubber goods as well as consumer and daily use products. What is Rubber? Technically speaking, rubber is a natural polymer of Isoprene (usually cis-1,4-polyisoprene). It is hydrocarbon polymer occurring as milky latex in the sap of various plants and can also be made synthetically. A small percentage (about 5%) of other materials like proteins, fatty acids, resins and inorganic materials (salts) are also present in natural rubber. Rubber, as mentioned earlier too, can also be made artificially or synthetically. The type of rubber which is produced artificially is called synthetic rubber. In simple terms, rubber can be defined as a sticky, elastic solid which is produced from a milky liquid known as latex obtained from various types of rubber trees. Different Types of Rubber There are basically two broad categories into which the rubber types can be placed. These are- Natural Rubber and Synthetic Rubber. Sometimes vulcanized rubber is also taken to be a type of rubber. Lets know about all these types of rubber. Natural Rubber The elastic material which is obtained from the latex sap of trees is called natural rubber. Natural rubber can be vulcanized and finished into a various types of rubber products. Various types of tropical and sub-tropical trees in the regions of Amazon, South East Asia and Africa produce the milky fluid latex that are in the form of latex tubes. The rubber molecules present in these latex tubes are made up of 5 carbon and 8 hydrogen atoms. A large number of these rubber molecules are joined with each other to form long, chain-like structure. This chain of rubber molecules is called polymers that gives rubber its property of elasticity. Synthetic Rubber Any kind of artificial elastomer (a polymer) is called synthetic rubber. An elastomer can be defined as a material having the property of elasticity. Thus, the type of rubber made from chemicals to act as the substitute for natural rubber is the synthetic rubber. There are various types of polymers used for making synthetic rubber types. Due to this, different types of synthetic rubbers have different properties that are tailored for specific needs of rubber products industries. To have an idea about these different synthetic rubbers, read about the Types of Synthetic Rubber
Copper
Copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orange color. Copper is used as a conductor of heat and electricity, as a building material, and as a constituent of various metal alloys, such as sterling silver used in jewelry, cupronickel used to make marine hardware and coins, and constantan used in strain gauges and thermocouples for temperature measurement. Copper is one of the few metals that can occur in nature in a directly usable metallic form (native metals). This led to very early human use in several regions, from c. 8000 BC. Thousands of years later, it was the first metal to be smelted from sulfide ores, c. 5000 BC, the first metal to be cast into a shape in a mold, c. 4000 BC and the first metal to be purposefully alloyed with another metal, tin, to create bronze, c. 3500 BC. Copper used in buildings, usually for roofing, oxidizes to form a green verdigris (or patina). Copper is sometimes used in decorative art, both in its elemental metal form and in compounds as pigments. Copper compounds are used as bacteriostatic agents, fungicides, and wood preservatives.
Cast iron
Cast iron
Cast iron tends to be brittle, except for malleable cast irons. With its relatively low melting point, good fluidity, castability, excellent machinability, resistance to deformation and wear resistance, cast irons have become an engineering material with a wide range of applications and are used in pipes, machines and automotive industry parts, such as cylinder heads, cylinder blocks and gearbox cases. It is resistant to damage by oxidation. The earliest cast-iron artefacts date to the 5th century BC, and were discovered by archaeologists in what is now Jiangsu in China. Cast iron was used in ancient China for warfare, agriculture, and architecture.During the 15th century, cast iron became utilized for cannon in Burgundy, France, and in England during the Reformation. The amounts of cast iron used for cannon required large scale production.The first cast-iron bridge was built during the 1770s by Abraham Darby III, and is known as The Iron Bridge in Shropshire, England. Cast iron was also used in the construction of buildings.
Heat treating
Heat treating
Heat treating (or heat treatment) is a group of industrial, thermal and metalworking processes used to alter the physical, and sometimes chemical, properties of a material. The most common application is metallurgical. Heat treatments are also used in the manufacture of many other materials, such as glass. Heat treatment involves the use of heating or chilling, normally to extreme temperatures, to achieve the desired result such as hardening or softening of a material. Heat treatment techniques include annealing, case hardening, precipitation strengthening, tempering, carburizing, normalizing and quenching. Although the term heat treatment applies only to processes where the heating and cooling are done for the specific purpose of altering properties intentionally, heating and cooling often occur incidentally during other manufacturing processes such as hot forming or welding.
Powder coating
Powder coating
Powder coating is a type of coating that is applied as a free-flowing, dry powder. Unlike conventional liquid paint which is delivered via an evaporating solvent, powder coating is typically applied electrostatically and then cured under heat. The powder may be a thermoplastic or a thermoset polymer. It is usually used to create a hard finish that is tougher than conventional paint. Powder coating is mainly used for coating of metals, such as household appliances, aluminium extrusions, drum hardware, automobile, motorcycle, and bicycle parts. Newer technologies allow other materials, such as MDF (medium-density fibreboard), to be powder coated using different methods. The powder coating process was invented around 1945 by Daniel Gustin US Patent 2538562.
Carbon steel
Carbon steel
The term "carbon steel" may also be used in reference to steel which is not stainless steel; in this use carbon steel may include alloy steels. High carbon steel has many different uses such as milling machines, cutting tools, such as chisels and high strength wires. These applications require a much finer microstructure, which improves the toughness. As the carbon percentage content rises, steel has the ability to become harder and stronger through heat treating; however, it becomes less ductile. Regardless of the heat treatment, a higher carbon content reduces weldability. In carbon steels, the higher carbon content lowers the melting point.
Nickel
Nickel
Nickel is slowly oxidized by air at room temperature and is considered corrosion-resistant. Historically, it has been used for plating iron and brass, coating chemistry equipment, and manufacturing certain alloys that retain a high silvery polish, such as German silver. About 9% of world nickel production is still used for corrosion-resistant nickel plating. Nickel-plated objects sometimes provoke nickel allergy. Nickel has been widely used in coins, though its rising price has led to some replacement with cheaper metals in recent years.
Alloy steel
Alloy steel
Strictly speaking, every steel is an alloy, but not all steels are called "alloy steels". The simplest steels are iron (Fe) alloyed with carbon (C) (about 0.1% to 1%, depending on type). However, the term "alloy steel" is the standard term referring to steels with other alloying elements added deliberately in addition to the carbon. Common alloyants include manganese (the most common one), nickel, chromium, molybdenum, vanadium, silicon, and boron. Less common alloyants include aluminium, cobalt, copper, cerium, niobium, titanium, tungsten, tin, zinc, lead, and zirconium. The following is a range of improved properties in alloy steels (as compared to carbon steels): strength, hardness, toughness, wear resistance, corrosion resistance, hardenability, and hot hardness. To achieve some of these improved properties the metal may require heat treating. Some of these find uses in exotic and highly-demanding applications, such as in the turbine blades of jet engines, in , and in nuclear reactors. Because of the ferromagnetic properties of iron, some steel alloys find important applications where their responses to magnetism are very important, including in electric motors and in transformers.