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How Will Temperature Affect the Ability of Rubber to Stretch?

Rubber is an important product to economies around the world, as people use millions of tons of it annually. Rubber is highly prized due to the one property making the material so versatile -- elasticity. You can stretch rubber and mold it into a variety of shapes, providing flexibility in a finished product as it interacts with the elements. Rubber is most sensitive to temperature, so before using rubber or rubber products, it is important to under how temperature will affect rubber's ability to stretch.

Understanding Hooke's Law
- Discovered by British physicist Robert Hooke in 1660, Hooke's law of elasticity states a deformation of an object happens in direct proportion to the load applied onto the object. Upon removal of the load, the object will return to its original form. Rubber fits into this law just fine until, of course, the load applied exceeds its elasticity and causes it to split or break. For example, if you stretch a rubber band too far, it will break; when you let go of it, however, it shrinks back to its original size. Temperature also affects how far rubber will stretch and how it will respond to a load or force.
How Warmer Temperatures Affect Elasticity of Rubber
- Science confirms when things heat up, they expand. This is true for many materials and elements, but rubber will surprise you because it does just the opposite. When you apply heat to rubber, instead of expanding, it contracts. In addition, the rubber becomes more brittle, requiring less force to break it. So as rubber heats up, it actually loses elasticity.
How Colder Temperatures Affect Elasticity of Rubbers
- When materials get colder, they generally contract, like when water turns to ice. This remains true for most elements and materials, but for rubber, once again the material just won't follow the rules. When rubber is exposed to colder temperatures, it actually expands slightly and is more elastic. This means a cold piece of rubber is softer, easier to stretch, and stronger, requiring more force to split it.
How It All Works
- The arrangement of molecules in rubber dictates its reactions. Before stretching, rubber molecules sit in a jumbled state at rest. But when you stretch rubber, you are stretching the molecules and forcing them to line up. The molecules contract to their resting position when you let go. When you heat up the molecules in rubber, the excited molecules want to go into a state of disorder and, therefore, will resist lining up. This makes rubber harder to stretch and is known as entropy theory, used to describe similar actions in DNA molecules.

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