Finite Element and Spectral Element Models of an Adaptive Magnetorheological Sandwich Beam

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Teaching Assistant, Aerospace Engineering Department, Cairo University.

2 Assistant Professor, Aerospace Engineering Department, Cairo University.

3 Professor Emeritus, Aerospace Engineering Department, Cairo University.

Abstract

Abstract:
The Magnetorheological fluid, as one of the smart materials, is the focus of many researches running nowadays and is getting to replace many materials in several engineering applications. This fluid is characterized by its ability to change from liquid into semi-solid gel in few milliseconds as a result of applying magnetic field. This paper deals with a magnetorheological fluid embedded in an Aluminum sandwich beam to give the whole sandwich structure relevant controllability of various parameters such as natural frequencies, vibration amplitudes, and damping factors. This paper presents Finite Element (FE) formulation of the MR sandwich beam, and uses the finite element model to solve for various beam boundary conditions, various magnetic field levels and configurations. The paper also compares the finite element results with published analytical results. Finally, the paper checks the suitability of the spectral element (SE) method in dealing with the MR sandwich beam, and compares the spectral results with the finite element results.

Keywords