Investigation on Magnetorheological Effect of Novel Self-healing Magnetorheological Elastomers

Magnetorheological elastomers (MREs) hold significant promise in various fields such as automotive engineering, and civil engineering, where they serve as intelligent materials. Depending on the application of an external magnetic field, these materials exhibit varying magnetorheological and viscoelastic properties, including shear stress, yield stress, dynamic moduli, and damping. In this work, a new type of MRE, termed self-healing MREs (SH-MREs), has been developed by adding a novel self-healing agent into existing MREs. The dynamic modulus and loss factor of SH-MREs with different compositions have been characterized under various conditions of frequency, temperature, and strain. The results show that as the strain value increases, the loss factor also increases. Moreover, the loss factor initially increases and then decreases with increasing magnetic field strength. Although higher concentrations of ferromagnetic particles increase the loss factor, they enhance the operational range due to their better responsiveness to magnetic fields. SH-MREs demonstrate improved damping capabilities, attributed to the formation of coordination bonds between ferromagnetic particles and the self-healing agent. The stable structure increases the viscosity of MREs. The results of the regression model suggest a direct proportionality between sensitivity to the magnetic field and the ferromagnetic particle concentration.