An experimental and analytical investigation of the dynamic characteristics of a flexible sandwich plate filled with electrorheological fluid

This paper investigates the dynamic characteristics of a sandwich plate embedded with an electrorheological (ER) fluid. A laser holographic interference experiment and modal testing were conducted to identify natural frequencies, modal damping and shapes of the composite structure, under different electric fields applied to the fluid domain. Moreover, the influence of the ER effect on the structural dynamic responses were recorded. It was found that both of the damping and natural frequencies of the sandwich plate increase monotonously with an increasing electric field; while, at the same time, the resonant peaks of the frequency response and the amplitudes of dynamic responses decrease. Furthermore, based on the special properties of the ER fluid, a discrete dynamic model of the sandwich plate containing ER fluids was developed and validated. The numerical simulation verifies the effect of the ER material on the structure, and the calculated dynamic parameters show the coincident changes with the experimental results.