A Method to Simulate the MR Fluid in ANSYS

ZHANG Zheng-xin1,LIU Qian-hui2,HUANG Fang-lin1 (1.School of Civil Engineering,Central South University,Changsha 410075,China; 2.Vocational Technical College,Guizhou University,Guiyang 550001,China) The magnetorheological fluid(MRF) is consistent with the mechanical properties of Newtonian fluid when no external magnetic field is present,at this time it can be modeled using FLUID142 in ANSYS.However,when exposed to a magnetic field,the MRF is also showing some solid-like characteristics,at present,there is no exactly appropriate element type in ANSYS to model MRF.This paper presents a method to simulate the mechanical behavior of magnetorheological fluid subjected to magnetic field in the pre-yield region in ANSYS.The main idea is devide an MRF element into two coincident elements,one of them has density and viscosity without shear modulus while another has shear modulus without density and viscosity.Take a simply supported MRF sandwich beam as an example,comparing the results with the theoretical analysis and experimental study of Ref.[1],this method can obtain good results and reasonable conclusion,verified the validity of finite element analysis in this paper.This kind of method which can be called Coincident Elements Method provides a new way to model the structures with MRF or MR dampers in ANSYS,and it also has some inspiration for the future development of related elements in ANSYS. Key Words magnetorheological fluid yield stress viscosity complex shear modulus