Good dispersion of compounded ingredients in a rubber formulation is important for mechanical performance. After mixing, certain materials can remain undispersed within the rubber matrix, which could lead to critical flaws, influencing performance according to the Griffith failure criteria. High resolution X-ray computed tomography (XCT) offers a unique opportunity to measure phase domain size and distributions. Fillers such as carbon black or silica can be differentiated from sulfur or zinc oxide, providing an opportunity to determine dispersion characteristics of the various phases. The XCT technique has become an important characterization tool for three-dimensional and higher dimension material science due to the availability of polychromatic micro-focus x-ray sources and efficient high spatial resolution detectors with superior scintillators. High resolution XCT provides very rich data quantifying mixing efficiency of particulates in a matrix, such as insoluble sulfur or silica particles in rubber. Imaging with X-rays provides attenuation, phase, or scattering contrast and will prove to be a critical method for evaluating the field of rubber crosslinking, considering realistic environments in situ. This paper highlights methodology development and validation and provides insight on the dispersion of polymeric (insoluble) sulfur in rubber formulations. Dispersion assessment is compared using three techniques: high resolution XCT, population survival analysis in tensile testing, and optical microscopy.

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Additive Manufacturing (AM) is gaining renewed popularity and attention due to low-cost fabrication systems proliferating the market. Current communication protocols used in AM limit the connection flexibility between the control board and peripherals; they are often complex in their wiring and thus restrict their avenue of expansion. Thus, the Controller Area Network (CAN) bus is an attractive pathway for inter-hardware connections due to its innate quality. However, the combination of CAN and AM is not well explored and documented in existing literature. This article aims to provide examples of CAN bus applications in AM. ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING'S (AM) place in the manufacturing industry is indisputable with the advent of low-cost solutions for parts fabrication, often known to the masses under the alias "3D Printing". The cost of 3D printing has dramatically decreased, leading to the advancement and widespread adoption of this technology. According to [1], approximately 2.2 million 3D printers were sold globally in 2021, with the market value expected to increase by 20.8% between 2022 and 2030. The RepRap movement brought about a revolution in AM with its mission of developing machines that clone themselves with self-fabricated parts, cheap electronics, and servos [2]. As the name would suggest, AM is a technique where the material is deposited in