Influence of magnetic boundary conditions on the quantitative modelling of magnetorheological elastomers
Miguel Ángel Moreno, Kostas Danas, Daniel Garcia‐Gonzalez
Abstract
The complex magneto-mechanical coupling that governs the material response of magnetorheological elastomers (MREs) requires computational tools to assist the design process. Computational models are usually based on finite element frameworks that often simplify and idealise the magnetic source and the associated magnetic boundary conditions (BCs). However, these simplifications may lead to important disagreement between the actual material behaviour and the modelled one, even at the qualitative level. In this work, we provide a comprehensive study on the influence of magnetic BCs and demonstrate the importance of considering them in the overall material-structure modelling strategy. To this end, we implement a magneto-mechanical framework to model the response of soft- and hard-magnetic MREs under magnetic fields generated by an idealised far-field uniform magnetic source, a permanent magnet, a coil system, and an electromagnet with two iron poles. The results unveil remarkable heterogeneities in computed local magnetostriction and magnetic fields depending on the magnetic setup used. A detailed discussion based on material and structural contributions provides a robust, rigorous and more importantly necessary modelling route for future works.