The implementation of vehicle electrification and autonomous driving technologies has recently emphasized the importance of abrasion resistance and fuel efficiency of truck bus radial (TBR) tire treads that undergo high loads and long driving times. In this study, a functionalized liquid butadiene rubber (F-LqBR) was introduced to replace the treated distillate aromatic extracted (TDAE) oil as a way to improve abrasion resistance and fuel efficiency in the TBR tire tread compound and to solve the oil migration. First, radical polymerization was used to synthesize nonfunctionalized LqBR (N-LqBR) and amino-LqBR with an amine group at the chain ends. The synthesized LqBRs were then substituted in place of TDAE oil to manufacture carbon-black-filled natural rubber (NR) compounds and to evaluate their physical properties. The results show that LqBRs improved the migration resistance and enhanced the abrasion resistance by lowering the glass transition temperature (Tg) of the compound. In particular, amino-LqBR improved carbon black dispersion in the rubber matrix through a chemical bond between the functional group of the carbon black surface and the base rubber. In conclusion, amino-LqBR successfully served as a processing aid in a carbon black-filled NR compound while simultaneously enhancing its fuel efficiency and abrasion resistance.
Keywords: carbon-black-filled compound; liquid butadiene rubber; radical polymerization; rubber compounding; truck bus radial tire tread.