Investigation on the mechanism of damping behavior of magnetorheological elastomers

Abstract

Magnetorheological elastomers (MREs) are a group of smart materials which have many applications such as dynamic vibration absorbers, engine mounts, and so on. The damping behavior is important for applications of MREs. However, the mechanism of the damping of MREs has not been investigated thoroughly. In this study, MREs are modeled as special particle reinforced composites with magneto-induced properties and the mechanism of the damping behavior of MREs is investigated theoretically and experimentally. It has been found that there are three types of damping property in MREs: the intrinsic damping, the interface damping and the magneto-mechanical damping. The presented damping model is successfully validated by damping tests on a series of MRE samples. Furthermore, the relationships between the damping properties and formulas of MREs are discussed; this provides guidance for the manufacture of MREs with various damping properties.