Experimental Research about the Application of ER Elastomer in the Shock Absorber

Abstract

When the Electrorheological elastomer (ERE) is embedded into intelligence structure system, the structure damping and stiffness of the system can be changed quickly and reversibly under an external electric field. Thus, the application of the Electrorheological elastomer in the active and passive hybrid control of structural vibration has already attracted people's wide attention. In this paper, three types of ER elastomer were prepared based on barium titanate, starch, then the microstructure of ER elastomer was observed and the mechanical properties were analyzed; a shear mode ERE shock absorber was designed, the vibration response performance of which was experimentally evaluated under various excitation frequency with or without the applied field. The experimental results showed that the damping and stiffness of the shock absorber could be modified with a changing external electric field, whose macro-features was that the damping coefficient increased with the increase of the electric field, and the damping effect in the high frequency was better than in the low frequency.

Electro-active elastomer composites based on doped titanium dioxide

“…[8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] The possibility to vary the electromechanical characteristics of EREs and their structural stability make them attractive for developing new smart materials with potential applications in the automotive industry, robotics and prosthetic limbs, vibration isolators, building applications and electro-active actuators. [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25] For this purpose, ERE composites containing different inclusions and dispersed in different matrices, PANI/PDMS, 22 PbTiO 3 /AR7, 26 starch/silicone oil/silicone rubber, 27,28 polythiophene/polyisoprene, 29 Pb(Zr 0.5 ,Ti 0.5 )O 3 /acrylic rubber, 30 polydiphenylamine/poly(styrene-block-isoprene-block-styrene), 31 poly(p-phenylene)/acrylic elastomer, 32 or cellulose/BMIMCl gel, 33 have been investigated. These systems exhibited an increase of their electromechanical properties, and, in particular, of their storage modulus sensitivity {(G 0 (E) À G 0 (0))/G 0 (0)}.…”

Smart Table Tennis Racket with Tunable Stiffness for Diverse Play Styles and Unconventional Technique Training

“…[17] Electrorheological elastomers (EREs), a new kind of smart material whose stiffness varies with electric field intensity, is a competitive candidate for above problems, attracting increasing attention due to its reversible and controllable stiffness with fast response. [18][19][20] It was traditionally thought that EREs were applied to vibration attenuation or noise-reduction in aircraft, vehicles, machines, buildings, and so on [21][22][23][24][25] in shear mode.…”

Electrorheological Elastomers

“…Since the vibration characteristics of ERE beams can be controlled by changing the strength of applied field, the EREs are useful for applications in engineering structures where variable performance is desired. In 2013, Zhu et al designed a shear mode ERE shock absorber and evaluated its vibration response performance under various excitation frequencies with and without external electric field [17]. Their experimental results showed that the stiffness and damping properties of the shock absorber could be controlled by changing the strength of applied electric field, whose macrofeatures was that the damping coefficient increased with the ascending electric field strength, and the damping effect in high frequency was better comparing with that in low frequency.…”

“…EREs also present obvious merits in comparison with magnetorheological elastomers (MREs). The EREs are driven by electric field rather than magnetic field, which is much easier to apply without the need of large-sized electromagnetic coils [15][16][17].Therefore,theEREscanbeusedtodesignsmartdeviceswithsimple structure and low weight. Due to those advantages, ER elastomers have been extensively studied in recent years and have presented promising future in applications.…”