Mahmud Iskandar Seth A Rahim (Iskandar) holds a BEng in Chemical Engineering (Polymer) from University of Technology, Malaysia. Then he initially followed a rubber materials career working for Malaysian Rubber Board before studying for his PhD at The University of Sheffield.
Research interests
Iskandar’s main research interest is in vibro-acoustic properties of elastomeric materials. His research is specifically on the understanding of dynamic mechanical properties and acoustical properties of elastomeric materials and relates them to the vibration isolation and noise control solutions.
Current research
He is working on the chemically modified natural rubber known as Epoxidised Natural Rubber (ENR). Three types of natural rubber with different epoxidation levels: 0, 25 and 50 mol % are investigated. The dynamic properties of these materials are measured in simple shear deformation at different temperatures and frequencies. The measured dynamic properties results can be superposed to form master curves using time temperature superposition equivalence, thereby the dynamic properties for each ENR vulcanizate can be seen in a broader frequency and temperature range. These data are essential for modelling the vibro-acoustic behaviour of ENR in a range of noise control applications, which include automotive, industrial and aerospace. These types of rubber are now being developed into porous media using a novel production process.
The master curves for the storage modulus of rubber with different epoxidation levels as a function of the reduced frequency.
Publications
- MISA Rahim and P Bonfiglio (2016) Relationship between the temperature and frequency dependence of the damping properties of natural rubber with different epoxidation level. Acoustics Conference 2016.
- Bonfiglio P, Pompoli F, Horoshenkov KV & Rahim MISA (2016) A simplified transfer matrix approach for the determination of the complex modulus of viscoelastic materials. Polymer Testing, 53, 180-187