Performance of a large-scale magnetorheological elastomer–based vibration isolator for highway bridges

Abstract

This study presents an experimental investigation on the magnetorheological effect of a new magnetorheological elastomer–based adaptive bridge isolation bearing system. Two identical magnetorheological elastomer–based adaptive bridge bearings (isolators) were designed and fabricated. Electromagnets were incorporated to create a closed-loop magnetic path in the magnetorheological elastomer layers. A double-lap shear and compression test setup was utilized to characterize the mechanical properties of the system subjected to scaled structural cyclic forces and strains. Experimental results demonstrated that the effective stiffness of adaptive bridge bearings increases with increased applied magnetic field and a compressive force resulted in larger apparent shear stiffness. Also, increasing loading frequency resulted in larger apparent shear stiffness and lower magnetorheological effect and similarly, however, a compressive force resulted in smaller magnetorheological effects.

Magnetorheological Fluid Based Devices Reported in 2013–2018: Mini-Review and Comment on Structural Configurations

“…Therefore, the block-up behavior can be avoided by properly controlling the pressure difference (or the fielddependent actuating force) through the servo valve system. It is remarked here that recently, a new kind of high-loaded mount using MR elastomer was introduced in Yarra et al (2018). The mount based on the MR elastomer does not require any fluid reservoir, but the response time is relatively slow.…”

A novel bi-directional shear mode magneto-rheological elastomer vibration isolator

“…Likewise, vibration, even in short period or low strength, can severely affect the performance of many sensitive electrical and optical instruments such as laser measurement systems, fiber sensing devices, and structural health monitoring equipment. Moreover, civil structures such as buildings, bridges, highways, traffic signals, and variable-message signs are susceptible to environmental stimulus such as wind, rain, vortex induced vibration (VIV), earthquakes, and storms, which enforce several levels of displacement and acceleration demands (Meyer et al, 2015; Yarra et al, 2018; Zhao et al, 2017). Furthermore, many human beings, according to their environmental work space, are at risk of excessive vibration which can lead to serious diseases such as hand-arm vibration syndrome (HAVS) (Yao et al, 2018), chronic back pain, spinal misalignment, and neck strain (Castelo et al, 1999).…”

“…The MREs are, thus, considered to offer meritorious potentials for many engineering applications, particularly for vibration and noise reduction; thanks to their wide variations in stiffness and energy absorption properties, apart from the low response time, stability, compatibility with mechanical components and reasonably low power requirement (Li et al, 2014; Vatandoost et al, 2019). A number of studies have also demonstrated macroscopic applications of MREs such as vibration isolator for highway bridges (Yarra et al, 2018), vehicle seat suspensions (Du et al, 2011), powertrain mounts (Xin et al, 2016b), adaptive tuned vibration absorbers (ATVAs) (Qian et al, 2017; Sun et al, 2017), structural seismic mitigation as well microscopic applications such as force sensors (Li et al, 2009), soft actuator (Kashima et al, 2012), sealing eye retina detachments (Alekhina et al, 2018), MRE-based stiffness display (Hooshiar et al, 2020), and artificial lymphatic vessels (Behrooz, 2015). Besides, many semi-active MRE-based vibration suppression devices have been designed for applications in structural seismic mitigation (Gu et al, 2016, 2017, 2019; Yu et al, 2016).…”

“…A novel MRE mount shock absorber in shear mode has been designed, manufactured, and tested by Kavlicoglu et al (2011). In this regard, maximum lateral stiffness change (Li et al, 2013), negative stiffness effects (Yang et al, 2014), MRE geometry effects on tuning capability (Wang et al, 2017), passive-active stiffness element interactions (Du et al, 2017), and power consumption effects (Chen et al, 2016) of shear mode isolators were also studied and the application of these devices in different situations such as softening MRE isolator of a three-story building (Yang et al, 2016) and bridge isolators (Li et al, 2017; Yarra et al, 2018; Zhao et al, 2017) were analyzed theoretically or experimentally.…”

“…Another compression mode MRE mount has been designed, manufactured, and tested (Kavlicoglu et al, 2011), in which the increase in static and dynamic compression stiffness of the proposed MRE mount was obtained 90% and 27%, respectively. Natural rubber–based MRE isolator (Wahab et al, 2016), pre-load effect on a compression mode MRE isolator (Bastola and Li, 2018), application of compression mode MRE isolator in load bearings (Yarra et al, 2018), and self-sensing MRE isolator (Li et al, 2018) are some novel researches have been performed on compression mode isolators.…”