Magnetic behavior of magneto-rheological foam under uniaxial compression strain

Abstract

Abstract This study reports the development of a magneto-rheological foam, which consists in a porous matrix filled by ferromagnetic particles. The porous matrix of such a composite being easily deformable, large magnetic properties changes are expected. The measurements of the magnetic properties of such a magneto-rheological foam submitted to a compressive strain are reported. Main aspect of the magnetic properties is the low field magnetic permeability as the function of the compression and filling factor. Then, larger field magnetization measurement allowed to investigate the saturation field as a function of the filling factor. Because of the large amount of pores in the material, the magnetic relative permeability, µ r, is quite small (µ r ∼ 1). However, these materials can be easily deformed over a large range of strain providing important relative variation of the magnetic properties under mechanical solicitation. The composite magnetic permeability is increasing under compression for all the considered filling factors. A model is then developed to understand the variation of the permeability with the strain. Hence, from a simple concept consisting of taking advantage of high deformation of foams, the present study demonstrates the interest of such a highly compressible while cheap composite for obtaining a large magneto-rheological effect.