Finite Element and Spectral Element Models of an Adaptive Magnetorheological Sandwich Beam

Abstract

The Magnetorheological fluid, as one of the smart materials, is the focus of many researches running nowadays and is getting to replace many materials in several engineering applications. This fluid is characterized by its ability to change from liquid into semi-solid gel in few milliseconds as a result of applying magnetic field. This paper deals with a magnetorheological fluid embedded in an Aluminum sandwich beam to give the whole sandwich structure relevant controllability of various parameters such as natural frequencies, vibration amplitudes, and damping factors. This paper presents Finite Element (FE) formulation of the MR sandwich beam, and uses the finite element model to solve for various beam boundary conditions, various magnetic field levels and configurations. The paper also compares the finite element results with published analytical results. Finally, the paper checks the suitability of the spectral element (SE) method in dealing with the MR sandwich beam, and compares the spectral results with the finite element results.

Dynamic characteristics and control of magnetorheological/electrorheological sandwich structures: A state-of-the-art review

“…Finite element (FE) method is the most reported approach in vibration analysis of the MR/ER sandwich structures (Allahverdizadeh et al, 2012(Allahverdizadeh et al, , 2013a(Allahverdizadeh et al, , 2013c(Allahverdizadeh et al, , 2014Bishay et al, 2010;Hirunyapruk et al, 2010;Lee, 1995;Mohanty, 2013;Nayak et al, 2012b;Rajamohan et al, 2010aRajamohan et al, , 2010bRajamohan et al, , 2010cRajamohan et al, , 2013Rezaeepazhand and Pahlavan, 2008a;Wei et al, 2011;Zhou et al, 2006). This method employs potential and kinetic energy of the structures and represents the governing equations of motion in a matrix form as follows…”

“…Review of literature shows that the elastic layers employed in the MR sandwich structures were typically chosen from aluminum strips (Bishay et al, 2010; Hu et al, 2011; Joshi, 2012; Lara-Prieto et al, 2010; Rajamohan et al, 2010a, 2010b, 2010c; Sapiński and Snamina, 2009; Sun et al, 2003; Yalcintas and Dai, 1999, 2004; Yeh and Shih, 2006a; Zhou et al, 2006). It is attributed to low damping properties and relatively high stiffness of aluminum compared to that of the MR fluid.…”

“…For this purpose, applications of plastic spacer (Sun et al, 2003; Wei et al, 2008), silicon rubber (Allahverdizadeh et al, 2013c, 2014; Berg et al, 1996; Choi et al, 1992; Yalcintas and Coulter, 1995a), latex materials (Don and Coulter, 1995; Shiang and Coulter, 1996), polycarbonate (Don and Coulter, 1995; Shiang and Coulter, 1996; Yalcintas et al, 1995), perspex (Phani and Venkatraman, 2003, 2005), and Buna-N rubber (Rajamohan et al, 2010a, 2010b, 2010c) have been widely reported in the literature, which is due to flexibility and oil resistance properties of these materials. Bishay et al (2010) employed aluminum frame to provide a uniform gap between the face layers of MR-based sandwich beam. The high flexural rigidity of the aluminum frame prevented the structure to experience significant shear deformation in the core layer; hence, the effect of MR fluid on the dynamic characteristics of the structure was insignificant, in response to applied magnetic field.…”

“…Application of PET frame and tape for sealing the MR fluid have also been reported by Lara-Prieto et al (2010) and Hirunyapruk et al (2010), respectively. Some studies have considered the effect of the sealant and spacer in the mathematical modeling (Allahverdizadeh et al, 2013c, 2014; Bishay et al, 2010; Kang et al, 2001; Lee, 1995; Rajamohan et al, 2010a, 2010b, 2010c). They employed rule-of-mixture to account for the effect of silicon rubber on the complex shear modulus of the core layer.…”

Active vibration suppression of elastic blade structure: Using a novel magnetorheological layer patch

“…Eshaghi et al (2015) considered the characterization of two types of MR fluids (MR 122EG and MR 132DG) in the pre-yield region and performed experimentally the frequency characteristics of a three-layer composite plate filled with the MR liquids in the middle layer. Bishay et al (2010) analyzed the controllability of various dynamic parameters such as natural frequencies, vibration amplitudes, and damping factors for an aluminum sandwich beam filled with magnetorheological fluid. Rajamohan et al (2010, 2013) evaluated different configurations of a partially treated MR fluid beam to investigate the influences of the location and length of the MR fluid for different boundary conditions.…”