Fatigue life prediction of magnetorheological elastomers subjected to dynamic equi-biaxial cyclic loading

Prediction of fatigue life is of great significance in ensuring that dynamically loaded rubber components exhibit safety and reliability in service. In this text, the dynamic equi-biaxial fatigue behaviour of magnetorheological elastomer (MREs) using a bubble inflation method is described. Miller (S-N) curves for both isotropic and anisotropic MREs were produced by subjecting the compounds to cycling over a range of stress amplitudes (sigma(a)) between 0.75 MPa and 1.4 MPa. Changes in physical properties, including variation in stress strain relations and complex modulus (E*) during the fatigue process were analysed. It was found that the complex modulus of MRE samples decreased throughout the entire fatigue test and failure took place at a limiting value of approximately 1.228MPa +/- 4.38% for isotropic MREs and 1.295 +/- 10.33% for anisotropic MREs. It was also determined that a dynamic stored energy criterion can be used as a plausible predictor in determining the fatigue life of MREs. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.