On magnetorheologic elastomers for vibration isolation, damping, and stress reduction in mass-varying structures

This article considers two devices based on a magnetorheological elastomer (MRE): an MRE isolator under a frequency-varying harmonic excitation and a MRE Dynamic Vibration Absorber (DVA) mounted on a frequency-varying structure under a random excitation. In the first case, it is shown that the commandability of the elastomer improves the reduction of the RMS value of the body displacement by 10\%. In the second case, it is shown on a simple example that a MRE DVA, while not optimal, can reduce the stress in the structure about 50 better than a classical DVA when the mass of the structure changes 35\%. This makes them suitable to avoid high stress in mass-varying structures, and delay some damage mechanisms like the emergence of cracks and fatigue. © 2010 The Author(s).