LONDON—The annual global rubber conference RubberCon will take place May 14-15, 2014, at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Manchester, England.
Prospective contributors are invited to present abstracts of papers that pertain to two related themes:
Theme 1: Advanced engineering and modelling of rubber:
• Rubber materials at the microstructural level;
• Rubber materials under static, dynamic, time-dependent or cyclic loading;
• Failure of rubber products from effects such as abrasion, aging, fatigue, softening, catastrophic tearing, swelling or diffusion phenomena;
• Manufacture of rubber products including the rheology of polymers during mixing, molding or extrusion; examination of thermodynamic flow and models of crosslinking.
Theme 2: Materials developments:
• Novel polymers, fillers or additives that can enhance performance;
• Detailed mechanisms of filler reinforcement;
• "Smart", energy harvesting or actuating elastomer systems including liquid crystal elastomers; dielectric elastomer actuators;
• Recycling initiatives;
• Engineering solutions to meet future legislation.