Worldwide consumption of rubber is roughly 18-20 million tonnes of very diversified goods. Among them, tyres are the most known but many industrial parts require high resistance to immediate or long-term exposition to high temperatures. Often this is combined with another requirement such as a good behaviour versus chemical media, for example mineral oils in automotive engines.
The ageing of rubbers is time dependent, affects all the properties and depends on the stresses and the surroundings. Consequently rating must take into account, the precise used grade, the current recipe, the functional properties and all the parameters involved by the service life.
The following figure, 'rubber-resistance-to-temperature and mineral oils', inspired from ASTM and SAE 2000 standards, diagrammatically displays the relative rating of various "usually formulated' rubbers exposed to "common" conditions of temperature and oil immersion. Some other special rubbers such as HNBR and polyphosphazene are not represented on this figure.