With the advancement of industry in the early 20th century, rubber
manufacturing took center stage as one of the premiere players alongside with metal
and plastic manufacturing. Industrial advancement resulted in the development of
many kinds of synthetic rubber and was driven by customer’s design specifications.
Today, there are fifteen major classes of rubber materials each containing subclasses,
which can be formulated and co-formulated within a certain range of specifications.
Such a variety of rubber compounds, provide materials with attributes conducive to
highly specialized applications. However, this same variety o f attributes and
applications can also create problems with effective mold design.