Abstract
The tensile strength of test pieces made from natural rubber vulcanizates drops abruptly at a critical temperature which can vary from 40 to 130°C. This variation in critical temperature is shown here to be a result of the variation in critical cut length with temperature. When the naturally occurring flaws in the test piece are smaller than the critical cut length, high tensile strength values occur, but when the flaws are longer than the critical cut length, low tensile strength values occur. The critical cut length decreases as the temperature increases, and the abrupt drop in tensile strength occurs as the critical cut length reaches the natural flaw size in the test piece. The natural flaw size in tensile test pieces depends on the sharpness of the cutter, and for tensile strength measurements at elevated temperature, it is shown that even a slightly blunt cutter may give markedly different results from a sharp one.