Sealing capability and hyperelastic behaviour of silicone biocomposites via compression test

Due to the excellent chemical flexibility and elastic properties of silicone rubber, Arenga pinnata‐silicone rubber biocomposites were introduced as a candidate for sealing applications. Its sealing properties were investigated via compressive properties between oil soaked and unsoaked specimens. Compression test based on ASTM D395 was employed to obtain the compression sets and its material constants are acquired using hyperelastic material models i. e. Neo‐Hookean and Mooney‐Rivlin models. Unsoaked specimens consist of 0 wt %, 4 wt %, 8 wt % and 16 wt % fibre content while for soaked specimens, only those with 0 wt % (lowest) and 16 wt % (highest) were prepared for comparison purposes. The results indicated that 16 wt % soaked specimens exhibit the highest compressive stress compared to both soaked and unsoaked 0 wt % specimens, while the compression sets of both 0 wt % and 16 wt % soaked specimens showed lower values compared to all unsoaked specimens. Using hyperelastic material models, the 16 wt % soaked specimens indicated higher material constants than unsoaked specimens while pure silicone showed the opposite. Thus, this study has found that the silicone biocomposites have the capability in sealing applications as its compressive stress shows superior properties especially for soaked specimens compared to pure silicone rubber.