Control of the Damping Properties of Magnetorheological Elastomers by Using Polycaprolactone as a Temperature-Controlling Component

Abstract

A novel kind of magnetorheological elastomers (MREs) with controllable damping properties was developed in this study. Polycaprolactone (PCL) was selected as the temperature-controllable component in the cis-polybutadiene rubber (BR) based MREs. Several samples with different BR/PCL mass ratio matrixes were prepared. The dynamic performances of the samples, including loss factor, shear storage modulus, and loss modulus, were measured with a rheometer. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analysis indicated that PCL is a phase change material and it can transform from a semicrystalline solid to a liquated soft material by increasing the surrounding temperature above the PCL melting point. Experimental results showed that the damping properties of the MREs can be controlled by varying the PCL weight ratio, the temperature, and the magnetic field. The controlling mechanism was proposed and the influence factors were analyzed. Last, it was also observed that the magnetoinduced modulus and the MR effect of the MREs were changed remarkably by the added PCL under different temperatures.

Recent Progress on Magnetorheological Solids: Materials, Fabrication, Testing, and Applications

“…The supplements that have been applied in MREs include zinc oxide and stearic acid as activators, sulfenamide (CZ) as an accelerator, sulfur as a crosslinking agent, and mercaptobenzothiazole. The types of synthetic rubber that have been applied in MREs are styrene butadiene rubber, [169] chloroprene rubber (CIIR), [117] bromobuthyl rubber (BIIR), [170] isobutylene-isoprene, [171] cis-polyisoprene, [172] cis-polybutadiene, [173][174][175][176][177][178] acrylonitrile rubber, [47,[179][180][181] and ethylenepropylene rubber. [98] Synthetic rubber-based MREs received more attention than the natural rubber MREs since they have higher resistance to oil, better aging, and weathering as well as resilience over a wide temperature range.…”

“…[102] The general motivation of blending incompatible/ immiscible polymers as a matrix is to produce an MRE with superior properties compared to the raw material. [102,103,123,140,173] It is important to note that, generally, immiscible polymer blends have the advantage of being thermodynamically unstable. The miscible polymer blends are classified into homogeneous blends featuring a single-phase structure, in which the solubility depends on the glass transition temperature.…”

“…[173,174] Various facts concerning the influence of the iron particle arrangement within the matrix during the pre-structure process in respect of the damping properties of MREs have also been revealed in several works. The controllability of the damping properties can be enhanced by using temperature-controllable materials in the matrix.…”

Physicochemical Properties and Stress-Strain Compression Behaviors of a Waste based Magnetorheological Elastomers

“…To date, the utilized unsaturated elastomers have been natural rubber [39][40][41] and synthetic rubber, i.e. styrene butadiene rubber [42], chloroprene rubber (CIIR) [43], Bromo butyl rubber (BIIR) [44], isobutylene-isoprene [39], cispolyisoprene [45], cis-polybutadiene [27,[46][47][48][49][50], acrylonitrile rubber [51][52][53][54], and ethylene-propylene rubber [53,54]. The magnetizable particles used for MREs are commonly provided by well-known chemical companies such as BASF (carbonyl iron, spherical shape, 1-20 microns) [52,[55][56][57], ISP (carbonyl iron, spherical) [40,[58][59][60], Hoganas (iron powder, irregular shape above 20 micron) [61,62], and Sigma-Aldrich (carbonyl iron/iron pentacarbonyl) [63][64][65].…”

The damping behavior of magnetorheological gel based on polyurethane matrix

“…The matrix of MRE is a rubber‐like solid material. It can effectively prevent the settlement of ferromagnetic particles, and it also has favorable mechanical properties and MR effect . As its loss factor is generally small , it is suitable for manufacturing isolator.…”