Line-patterned hybrid magnetorheological elastomer developed by 3D printing

This article presents the development of line-patterned magnetorheological elastomers via 3D printing and their magnetorheological characterization. Herein, we consider five different patterns of magnetorheological fluid filaments that are printed and encapsulated within the elastomer matrix. The 3D-printed magnetorheological elastomers could represent the conventional isotropic and anisotropic magnetorheological elastomers. First, the effect of patterning the magnetorheological fluid filaments and the effect of change in the direction of the magnetic field is studied for all five patterns. Thereafter, the dynamic properties of 3D-printed magnetorheological elastomers under uniaxial deformation are presented. Magnetorheological effect shown by 3D-printed magnetorheological elastomers was found to be depended on the printed patterns as well as the direction of the applied magnetic field. This result showed that the 3D printing method has the potential to produce anisotropic magnetorheological elastomers or unique configuration of magnetic particles within the elastomer matrix. The dynamic testing showed that the storage modulus of 3D-printed magnetorheological elastomers is increased with increasing frequency and decreased with increasing strain amplitude, which signifies that the 3D-printed hybrid magnetorheological elastomers are also viscoelastic materials and the properties are magnetic field dependent as that of current magnetorheological elastomers.