Evaluation of Rubber/Mild Steel Bonds Failure after Exposure in Marine Environment

The use of rubber/metal bonded composite is growing in the offshore industries as well as in the automotive components. Maintaining a good adhesion between rubber to substrate bond is a crucial importance in ensuring a satisfactory product performance in service. Bond failure attributes to the severe product performance failure. Exposure under salt environment can cause the bond failure due to corrosion reaction. Therefore the durability of rubber/metal bond in seawater, using natural rubber bonded to mild steel by proprietary bonding agent is studied. The locus of failures was determined at primer/metal oxide layer and the results are presented in the SEM and EDS analysis on both of the interfacial failures area. The adhesion failure mechanism is proposed where the bond delamination was found precedes the under film corrosion.