Tire curing bladder of EPDM rubber and use thereof

Abstract

The invention relates to expandable rubber bladders comprised of EPDM rubber for shaping and curing articles of conjugated diene-based elastomers such as pneumatic tires. The bladders are of a rubber composition comprised of resin cured EPDM rubber composition as a terpolymer of ethylene/propylene and a minor amount of a non-conjugated diene. The bladder composition may also contain castor oil, corn oil and/or soya-bean oil. The bladder composition may also contain at least one of graphite and polytetrafluoroethylene powder. Alternately, the EPDM-based bladder rubber composition may also contain a minor amount of a butyl-type of rubber. The invention also relates to a method of curing pneumatic rubber tires by utilizing such EPDM-based expandable rubber tire curing bladder in a tire curing press.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.