Abstract
Magnetorheological elastomers (MREs) are class of smart materials whose rheological or viscoelastic properties can be varied by applying external magnetic fluid. MREs are the solid analogues of MRFs and expected to overcome the disadvantages of the fluid such as the particle deposition and the sealing problems. When such MREs are exposed to external magnetic field, the strength of the inter-particle force will change and thus their apparent elastic modulus is changed depending on the magnitude of the field. In this paper, the stiffness controllable elastomer composites known as MREs are first fabricated and their field- dependent dynamic properties are tested. The MREs are then applied to the vibration isolating mounts along with variable stiffness control scheme. In designing the vibration isolator, the magnetic field analysis was performed by the finite element method (FEM) in order to find an efficient way of applying the magnetic field on MRE. Experimental investigations show that the vibration of 1-dof structure can be reduced by the proposed anti-vibration mount with variable stiffness property.
