A Study on the Effects of Multiple Factors on the Irradiation Aging of <scp>EPDM</scp> Composites: Experimental and Machine Learning Approaches

ABSTRACT This study investigates the aging mechanism of ethylene propylene diene monomer (EPDM) rubber under high‐temperature irradiation conditions. In the absence of anti‐irradiation additives, the compression set retention (CSR) of EPDM decreases progressively with increasing irradiation dose. Interestingly, in composites containing additives such as poly(1,2‐dihydro‐2,2,4‐trimethyl‐quinoline), 2‐mercaptobenzimidazole, graphite, or dicumyl peroxide, CSR shows an inverse trend—higher retention at high irradiation doses and lower at low doses. This phenomenon is attributed to the competing effects of chain scission and cross‐linking promotion under irradiation, further supported by cross‐linking density measurements. A neural network model ( R 2 &gt; 0.92) was employed to evaluate the nonlinear effects of irradiation dose and temperature on CSR. SHapley Additive Explanations (SHAP) were conducted to quantify the contribution of each factor to radiation resistance. The results demonstrate that the additives improve resistance to both thermo‐oxidative and radiation aging, with a more pronounced effect on the former. Among all systems, graphite exhibited the highest irradiation resistance. Integrating experimental results with machine learning (ML) provides valuable insights into the scission—cross‐linking interplay, aiding in the design of advanced anti‐irradiation materials.