Effect of Carbon Black on the Dynamic Properties of Anisotropic Magnetorheological Elastomer

In this work, dynamic properties of magnetorheological elastomers (MREs) based on iron sand and natural rubber; with different contents of carbon black filler (30 and 50 phr) were investigated. Tan δ was measured using dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) over a range of frequency (0.01–130 Hz) and strain amplitude (0.1%–4.5%). Tan δ was found to be higher for anisotropic MREs with additions of carbon black, with 20%–40% improvement over the whole frequency range explored and 6%–15% improvement over the strain amplitude range explored. The results exhibited the advantages of carbon black in improving the damping performance of the MREs. The morphological characteristics of the MREs were also examined with scanning electron microscopy.