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Estimation and expression of uncertainty for curing parameters of rubber compounds.

Article Excerpt
Today, most of the decisions related to process problems, quality control, a new development or any process modification are based on the result of quantitative analyses of different kinds. Hence, it is important to have some indication of the quality of the results for the purpose in hand. It is also required to eliminate the replication of effort frequently expended in obtaining them. Confidence in data obtained outside the user's own organization is a prerequisite to meeting this objective. It is now a requirement for laboratories to introduce quality assurance measures such as the use of validated methods of analysis, participation in a proficiency testing program and laboratory accreditation to insure that they are capable of and are providing data of the required quality.

To fulfill these requirements, it is essential to demonstrate the quality of results and, in particular, to demonstrate their fitness for the purpose by giving a measure of the confidence that can be placed on the result. This is expected to include the degree to which a result would be expected to agree with other results, normally irrespective of the analytical methods used. One useful measure of this is measurement uncertainty.

The definition of measurement uncertainty is: A parameter associated with the result of a measurement that characterizes the dispersion of the values that could be reasonably attributed to the measurend.

In general, the word uncertainty relates to the general concept of doubt but, on contrary, knowledge and expression of uncertainty of measurement imply increased confidence in the validity of a measurement result.

In this article, we give the calculation of measurement uncertainty for curing parameters of a rubber compound which includes minimum torque, maximum torque, ts2, TC50 and TC90. Minimum torque is a measure of the stiffness of the unvulcanized test specimen,...