Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 February 2011
NMR imaging has been applied to some elastomeric materials of industrial interest. The T2s of common elastomers, Particularly after filling and curing, are sufficiently short That spin-echo sequences at submillisecond echo times cannot Produce T2 independent images. The sensitivity to T2 Potentially makes spin echo imaging a good probe of elastomer Blend composition, as demonstrated for a series of filled and Cured cis-polybutadiene, styrene-butadiene rubber blends. The Technique can be used to distinguish good and bad carbon black Dispersion in actual tire tread samples. The configuration of Polyester tire cord, voids, rubber layer boundaries, differences of molecular mobility and composition, and other inhomogeneities can be detected in end-product tire samples. The value of isotropic voxels at 80–100 um and the effect of resolution Relative to pore size are demonstrated on a model, H2O-saturated Porous glass disk of 200-um average pore size. The feasibility of multinuclear NMR imaging for fluid-specific characterization of porous materials such as oil cores is demonstrated for 7Li and 19F