Dr. Alan Muhr

TARRC
Research and Development
Brickendon Lane
Brickendonbury
Hertford United Kingdom SG13 8NL
Email: amuhr@tarrc.co.uk

Biographical Sketch: Alan (Hugh) Muhr graduated in mathematics at the University of Cambridge in 1975 and went on to do a PhD and post-doctoral research at the University of Nottingham on polysaccharides, covering rheology, thermodynamics and influence on ice crystallisation. He was recruited in 1983 by the Malaysian Rubber Producers’ Research Association (renamed TARRC in 1998) to work with Prof Alan Thomas on abrasion of rubber and its relationship to crack-growth characteristics. This proved an ideal opportunity to gain a broad knowledge of rubber science, since abrasion involves many topics: strength and fatigue properties, stress-strain behaviour, ageing, friction and lubrication, and the effects of rate and temperature on all of these. A need emerged for mathematical skills for a project on the mechanics of flexible rubber-steel laminates, and his work evolved to focus on design principles of rubber engineering components. Particular areas are load-deflection behaviour and failure. He became Leader of the Engineering Research & Design Unit at TARRC in 1999 and has published research on a wide range of rubber engineering components and their applications. These include laminated rubber isolators, marine fenders, automotive mounts and bushings and structural energy dissipation systems. Together with Dr Luis Dorfmann he co-founded the biennial European Conferences on Constitutive Models for Rubber. These provide a forum for developing accurate digital simulation of the engineering properties of rubber components. The goal is to eliminate discrepancies between the behaviour of virtual and actual rubber components, and thus the need for prototypes as part of the design process. He has presented several papers at ACS Rubber Division meetings, most of which have been published in Rubber Chemistry and Technology, along with additional papers presented by co-authors and a review on Modeling the Stress-Strain Behaviour of Rubber (vol 78, 2005).

Papers:
Melvin Mooney Distinguished Technology Award - Behavior of Rubber: Applications of Stress-strain Models