Experimental study and mathematical modelling on dependent shear properties of MRE material

Zhu, Guanghong, Xiong, Yeping, Daley, Stephen and Shenoi, Ramanand (2014) Experimental study and mathematical modelling on dependent shear properties of MRE material. 14th International Conference on Electrorheological Fluids and Magnetorheological Suspensions (ERMR2014), Granada, Spain. 06 - 10 Jul 2014.

Abstract

Magnetorheological elastomer (MRE) is a smart material with continuously, rapidly and reversibly adjustable stiffness and damping properties within a pre-yield regime under applied magnetic field. There has been increasing research on MRE for mitigation of unwanted vibrations, and the applications have been commercialized and industrialized in varies of fields, such as automotive industry and earthquake resistance. However, the majority of current research has focused on the linear mechanical properties when it comes to modelling for MRE material, which is not accurate with respect to the consideration of frequency, strain and field dependent properties of MRE. This paper reports a series of experimental research aiming at exploring the dependent stiffness and damping properties of MRE material in shear mode. The tests of dynamical properties characterisation are conducted with different driving frequencies (1-80Hz), strain amplitudes (0.8-2.0%) and magnetic fields (0-400mT). Experimental results of MRE have shown that the storage modulus increases as the excitation frequency increases, but the frequency ependence of loss modulus is determined by the matrix material of MRE: the loss modulus initially increases with increasing excitation frequency (<10Hz) up to a maximum value and then it decreases with further increasing excitation frequency; both the storage modulus and loss modulus decrease with an increase of the strain amplitude, meanwhile they increase with magnetic flux density and remain constant when the magnetic saturation occurs. Based upon the mechanical properties characterisation, a nonlinear model taking account of the frequency, strain and field dependent properties is proposed to describe the unique dynamical behaviour of MRE material. Furthermore, a vibration solation system comprising a beam and a non-linear isolator is studied to explore the influence of MRE dependent dynamics on isolation efficiency. The results show that compared to conventional isolators, MRE isolators can improve the performance of vibration control significantly from the prospective of both vibration response and power flow transmissibility.

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Contributors

Author: Yeping Xiong

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