Broad temperature and frequency range damping materials based on epoxidized natural rubber

The damping properties of epoxidized natural rubber (ENR) are investigated by the dynamic mechanical analysis in this article. Time–temperature superposition of the isotherms give the change of the damping property with frequency of each cured ENR. Due to the existence of the intermolecular hydrogen bonds between ENR and phenolic resin, the cured ENR with phenolic resin as curing agent shows much broader effective damping (tanδ > 0.3) temperature and frequency range than that of using the other two curing agents, sulfur and peroxide curing systems, its effective damping temperature range reaches nearly 150°C and effective damping frequency range covers the range from 10 −5 to 10 9 Hz. The influences of the phenolic resin types and contents on the damping property of ENR are also explored. The activation energies during the glass transition are calculated with the Arrhenius equation to demonstrate the change of the T g of ENR cured by different phenolic resin contents.