Influence of chain-like cobalt particles on the properties of magnetorheological elastomers

The different pre-structure formed by the particles determine the performance of magnetorheological elastomers (MREs). In this study, spherical cobalt particles with a diameter of 2–5 μm and chain-like cobalt particles (CCPs) composed of spherical particles with a diameter of about 1 μm with a chain length of 10–40 μm were respectively prepared. These two kinds of particles were used to prepared MREs under different orientation magnetic fields. The effects of different chain-like microstructures on the performance of MRE are compared. The dynamic viscoelastic test results of MREs show that the chain-like particles increased the movement resistance in the matrix, thereby increasing the damping factor of CCP-MREs. The special chain-like particles improved the Payne effect factor and magnetic field-induced storage modulus of isotropic CCP-MRE. It is worth noting that the performance of anisotropic CCP-MRE is different from traditionally believed performance improvement. Based on this work, a relationship curve between the MR effect and the adjacent particles’ distance was proposed.