4.1 Certain rubber articles, for example, seals, gaskets, hoses, diaphragms, and sleeves, may be exposed to oils, greases, fuels, and other fluids during service. The exposure may be continuous or intermittent and may occur over wide temperature ranges.
4.2 Properties of rubber articles deteriorate during exposure to these liquids, affecting the performance of the rubber part, which can result in partial failure.
4.3 This test method attempts to simulate service conditions through controlled accelerated testing, but may not give any direct correlation with actual part performance, since service conditions vary too widely. It yields comparative data on which to base judgment as to expected service quality.
4.4 This test method is suitable for specification compliance testing, quality control, referee purposes, and research and development work.
1.1 This test method covers the required procedures to evaluate the comparative ability of rubber and rubber-like compositions to withstand the effect of liquids. It is designed for testing: (1) specimens of vulcanized rubber cut from standard sheets (see Practice D3182), (2) specimens cut from fabric coated with vulcanized rubber (see Test Methods D751), or (3) finished articles of commerce (see Practice D3183). This test method is not applicable to the testing of cellular rubbers, porous compositions, and compressed sheet packing, except as described in 12.2.2.
1.2 Periodically, it is necessary to produce a new lot of an IRM oil to replace the dwindling supply of the current product. The Chairman of the subcommittee shall have the authority to approve the production of a replacement lot. Once produced, the technical data of the new lot shall be presented, in a comparative fashion, to that of the existing lot and balloted upon by the membership of the D11.15 subcommittee and, either subsequently or concurrently, balloted upon by the membership of the D11 main committee for approval to release the new lot for distribution.
1.3 In the event that an IRM oil becomes unavailable for distribution due to depletion, the Chairman of the subcommittee shall have the authority to approve production of a new lot and, after a meeting of the task group, regularly scheduled, or not, to release a quantity of the product for distribution sufficient enough only to address a backlog. Once the backlog is addressed, the process described in 1.2 shall be followed.
1.4 ASTM Oils No. 2 and No. 3, formerly used in this test method as standard test liquids, are no longer commercially available and in 1993 were replaced with IRM 902 and IRM 903, respectively (see Appendix X1 for details).