Prediction of the styrene butadiene rubber performance by emulsion polymerization using backpropagation neural network

Abstract

The effect of the amounts of initiator, emulsifier, and molecular weight regulator on the styrene butadiene rubber performance was investigated, based on the industrial original formula. It was found that the polymerization rate was increased with the increased dosage of initiator and emulsifier, and together with replenishing molecular weight regulator will make the Mooney viscosity of rubber meet the national standard when the conversion rate reaches 70%. The backpropagation neural network was trained by the original formula and ameliorated formula on the basis of Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm, and the relative error between the simulation results and experimental data is less than 1%. The good consistency shows that the BP neural network could predict the product performances in different formula conditions. It would pave the way for adjustment of the SBR formulation and prediction of the product performances.