Adaptive beam with elastic support based on magnetorheological elastomers for modal modulation and vibration suppression

Owing to the wide modulation capability of their magneto-induced modulus, smart structure-based magnetorheological elastomers (MREs) show great promise for vibration control in numerous engineering applications. In conventional smart structure-based MREs, however, vibration absorption or isolation is mainly used for discrete structural systems, and the requirement for vibration control in continuous structures can limit the application of vibration absorbers and isolators. Therefore, it is necessary to resolve the dynamic properties of the continuous structure to obtain modal information. In this paper, different types of smart beams with adaptive elastic support (AES)-based MREs, containing dual-end elastic support, single-end elastic support, and the combination of a fixed end and an AES at an arbitrary location, are developed to tactically influence the dynamics through magneto-mechanical coupling. A dynamic model of thin-walled beams with AES was established by using the improved Fourier series method (IFSM). The numerical results confirm that the effective suppression bandwidth of the beam with MRE-AES can be shifted as a result of the modal modulation-induced energy transfer from low to high frequencies, which requires a decreasing trend of modal amplitude at the response location as the elastic support stiffness increases. According to the modal analysis, the beams with single-end AES and dual-end AES have a decreasing trend of modal amplitude in the global location as stiffness increases. However, the modal amplitude trend of the beam with a fixed end and an AES is not monotonic at certain locations. The experimental results demonstrate that MRE-AES can effectively attenuate the acceleration responses of the beams with single-end AES and with a fixed end and an AES under harmonic excitation. The resonance peaks in the transmission remarkably shift to higher frequencies with increasing magnetic flux.