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Success of the vehicle in cold countries depends on performance of the vehicle under cold climatic conditions. In automobiles, structural elastomer components have strong influence on vehicle performance including NVH, ride comfort & durability. Elastomers are sensitive in nature to these climatic conditions due to its temperature dependent visco-elastic behavior. Thus, it is very important to understand structural elastomer component's performance at sub zero temperatures. In a vehicle, Engine mount is used to hold engine firmly and isolate vibrations away from chassis. Vibration isolation of a mount at low temperature is generally affected by the rubber composition. Major ingredients of the rubber composition influencing the low temperature characteristics are Elastomer type, filler type, plasticizer and curing system. Rubber composition plays key role in achieving engine mount properties like static stiffness, dynamic stiffness, permanent set and durability.

Success of the vehicle in the market depends on comfort provided while usage, which also includes noise, vibration and harshness (NVH). In order to achieve comfort level, the NVH levels have to be as low as possible. Powertrain is the main source of NVH, in which internal combustion engine consists of crank shaft and balancer shaft. Crank shaft gear is connected and driven by crank shaft and balanced by integral eccentric mass coupled with gear. Balancer shaft is used for additional balancing of rotating masses. Pair of crank shaft and balancer shaft gears generates noise and vibration when unbalance in the system and backlash in the gears increase while usage. The practice of interposing a vibration isolator on the surface of gear has been so far resorted for preventing transmission of vibration, therefore reduction in noise. In the work presented, balancer gear was made with sandwich design to reduce noise. Sandwich design comprises of Inner hub and outer ring with lug projections.

Diesel engine fuel hose return line is considered as a low pressure line and consists of two layers. The inner layer is used to carry the excess fuel, thereby hose material shall have resistance to fuel and its residues. The outer layer is used to protect inner layer from heat, ozone and oil spillage, thereby outer cover material shall have resistance against the heat, ozone and engine oil. Currently NBR PVC, NBR and FKM materials have been used as inner layer materials in diesel engine fuel hose outer cover application, according to service temperature. Halogen contained CSM material has been used for outer cover application and the production of CSM material was withdrawn by one of the major manufacturer recently. Current global challenge is to use environment friendly material in vehicle components to make hazardous free environment. To replace CSM material, which contains Halogen, the available options are CPE, CR, HNBR and AEM materials.

Brake system has been considered as the most important safety system for a vehicle. Performance of the Brake system depends upon various factors like purity of brake fluid, material and construction of rubber hose, rubber seal performance etc. The purity of the brake fluid is one of the most vital factor and incompatibility of the rubber hose with brake fluid causes contamination of the brake fluid. This intern can cause shrinkage / swelling of master, slave cylinder rubber seals. The change in the dimensional of the rubber seals directly affects the performance of the brake system. In order to evaluate the performance of the brake system, Styrene Butadiene Rubber (SBR) and EPDM elastomers with different % of ethylene and varying ENB content were considered for brake fluid compatibility test. These rubber materials were tested in the different brands of DOT 3 brake fluid.

Success of the vehicle in the market depends on comfort provided while usage, which also include level of noise, vibration and harshness (NVH). In order to achieve good cabin comfort, the NVH levels have to be as low as possible. Powertrain is main source of NVH issues on vehicle and typically mounted on vehicle using rubber isolators. The dynamic characteristics of rubber isolators play vital role in reducing the vibrations transfer from powertrain to vehicle structure while operation and during dynamic conditions. Traditionally, isolators are manufactured using Natural Rubber (NR) to meet functional requirements which include vibration isolation and durability. At times either of above requirements has to be compromised or sacrificed due to the limitation in compounding process and other practical problems involved with manufacturing of rubber parts.