Magnetorheological Elastomer Based Flexible Metamaterials Coupler for Broadband Longitudinal Vibration Isolation: Modeling and Experimental Verification
Ayman M. H. Salem, Abdelrahman Ali, Asan G. A. Muthalif, Rahizar Ramli, Sabariah Julai
Abstract
Longitudinal vibrations due to different external excitations are omnipresent in almost every machine, eventually leading to unplanned downtime, and in some cases, catastrophic failures. The passive approach to isolate such vibration has some limitations. Magnetorheological elastomers (MREs) typically consist of micron-sized ferrous particles dispersed in an elastomeric matrix. Its rheological properties, such as the viscosity and dynamic modulus, can be altered when subjected to a magnetic field. Thus, magnetorheological elastomers have drawn significant attention from researchers due to their versatility in vibration control applications. In this study, an MRE-based metamaterial coupler is fabricated for broadband vibration attenuation. The vibration control performance of the proposed model is investigated in terms of its transmissibility factor. Sine sweep vibration testing is used to examine the transmissibility factor for single, double, and triple-layer MRE metamaterial couplers accompanied by different activation scenarios. The results reveal that the stiffness of the MRE layers increases with the strength of the applied magnetic field. Utilizing more than one layer of MRE increases the ability to isolate longitudinal vibration at different frequency bands. The maximum reduction curves achieved by single, double, and triple-layer MREs are approximately 84.5%, 97%, and 99.6%, respectively. The findings of this study demonstrate that the proposed MRE-based metamaterial couplers can attenuate vibrations at broadband frequencies.