Mechanical Properties of Magneto‐Sensitive Elastomers in a Homogeneous Magnetic Field: Theory and Experiment

Abstract

SummaryThe aim of this study is to present a microscopic theory which describes the mechanical behaviour of magneto‐sensitive elastomers (MSEs) under a uniform external magnetic field. For this we use a model where magnetic particles are located on the sites of the regular rectangular lattice. We introduce a structure parameter to describe isotropic, chain‐like and plane‐like particle distributions. Our theory is based on the equation for free energy as a function of strain. The magneto‐induced deformation and the shear modulus are calculated as functions of the magnetization. It is shown that interaction between the magnetic particles results in the contraction of an elastomer along the homogeneous magnetic field. With increasing magnetic field the shear modulus for the shear deformation perpendicular to the magnetic field increases for all spatial distributions of magnetic particles. Furthermore, we have compared our result for the shear modulus to the experimental data and found good agreement.