Nucleation and Growth of Gas Bubbles in Elastomers

Abstract

An experimental study is described of the formation and growth of gas bubbles in crosslinked elastomers. A critical condition for bubble formation is found to hold in most cases: The gas supersaturation pressure must exceed 5G/2, where G is the shear modulus of the elastomer. The kinetics of bubble growth are shown to be in good accord with a simple diffusion-controlled growth relation for a variety of gases, elastomers, temperatures, and pressures. The number of bubbles depends strongly upon the degree of supersaturation above the critical level. This effect is attributed partly to kinetic factors and partly to the presence initially of internal holes of a range of sizes.