Patent ID: 6407165
Filing Date: 2002-06-18
Classification: C08K,C08L

Abstract:
A method for increasing the damping properties of tire rubber comprising the steps of:adding an unsaturated damping additive to a composition comprising a vulcanizable elastomer, where said damping additive comprises a hyper-branched polymer that is formed by crosslinking a prepolymer with a crosslinking agent, where the prepolymer has greater than one functionality and the crosslinking agent is at least difunctional, and where the extent to which the functionalized polymer is crosslinked by the multi-functional crosslinking agent is defined by the following formula E=&LeftBracketingBar;r-rgel&RightBracketingBar;rgelwhere E is the relative distance to the gel point and is a value of less than 0.2, r is the extent of the reaction, and rgel is the extent of the reaction at the gel point; andprocessing the vulcanizable composition of matter containing the damping additive into tire rubber.