The effect of pre-structure process on magnetorheological elastomer performance

Abstract

Abstract On fabricating magnetorheolgoical elastomer, the mixture of iron particles and un-vulcanized rubber is placed under a curing magnetic field for some time so that iron particles are driven by the magnetic force to form a columnar structure; this process is called the pre-structure process. The microstructure of a magnetorheological elastomer sample is influenced by the pre-structure process, however, few reports address this problem in detail. This paper aims to study the effect of the pre-structure process on the magnetorheological elastomer performance. The pre-structure process is dominated by three influencing factors: magnetic field, curing time and temperature. A variety of magnetorheological elastomer samples were fabricated under different pre-structure conditions and their shear moduli were measured by using a dynamic mechanics analyzer machine. Scanning electron microscope images of these samples were also taken. The results demonstrated the magnetic field-induced modulus shows an increasing trend with magnetic strength before the magnetorheological elastomer samples reach magnetic saturation. The relative magnetorheological effect has an optimal value when the pre-structure field is 110 mT. The effects of the pre-structure time and temperature on the magnetorheological effect were also addressed by using the optimal pre-structure field. These three pre-structure conditions also affect each other. Thus, to fabricate higher-performance magnetorheological elastomer, these pre-structure conditions should be optimized. These results were also explained by study of the particle motion within the matrix.