Electromagnetic-mechanical coupling in the magneto-rheological elastomerselastomers: An experimental overview

This paper describes an extensive experimental characterization conducted on Magneto-rheological elastomers (MRE) that are composite materials with magnetically polarized particles dispersed in an elastomeric soft matrix. The mechanical and rheological properties of these materials, that are an important branch of the smart material family, can be reversibly changed upon exposure to a magnetic field. This multi-physics coupling shows also an inverse effect and is named pseudo-Villari effect. So MREs show a dependence of magnetic induction field of a material on mechanical stress/strain. The manuscript focuses on isotropic and particles-oriented samples with 25% particles’ percentage volume. The samples are subjected to shear periodic loads, varying both the amplitude and the frequency of the excitation, as well as the magnetic field. Results show that the isotropic pads have a negligible electromagnetic-mechanical coupling effect, while, the pads with oriented particles present a high coupling both for the direct and the inverse effect.