Development of a Magneto-Mechanical Bench and Experimental Characterization of Magneto-Rheological Elastomers

Magneto-rheological elastomers (MREs) belong to the class of smart materials whose mechanical properties can be controlled by an external magnetic field. These materials can be integrated into mechatronic systems and submitted to multiple loadings such as temperature, mechanical stress, and magnetic field. Thus, this work is dedicated to the development of a magneto-mechanical bench and on first experimental characterizations of hard MREs taking multiphysics coupling into account. Regarding the mechanical loading, the experimental setup is able to create a uniaxial tensile stress in case of low strain (< 1%) without friction effect. In regards to the magnetic loading, a magnetic circuit made of a strong permanent magnet has been designed to impose a variable and a homogeneous magnetic field strength up to 41 kA/m. Experimental analysis has been performed on silicone rubber filled with 36%vol. of NdFeB particles. The purpose was first to investigate the evolution of the Young modulus with or without magnetic field. Results obtained from measurements show that the developed test bench is able to depict the mechanical behavior and phenomena linked to rubber-like material.