Effective magnetoelastic responses of hybrid fiber composites with viscoelastic matrices

This study examines the overall magnetoelastic responses of unidirectional fiber composites constructed by magnetostrictive fibers embedded in viscoelastic polymer matrices that had been reinforced by stiff fillers. In some polymer-based fiber composites, modifying polymer's property by infiltrating particulate fillers is necessary. To design such hybrid composite systems with magnetoelastic coupling, it requires a detailed understanding of aggregate responses. In this study, we formulate a composite constitutive model based on a two-scale homogenization scheme for effective coupled viscoelastic and magnetoelastic responses for hybrid fiber composites. We first verify the validity of the model by comparing the predictions with experimental results available in literatures. We next investigate the performance of a hybrid composite in light of blocked stress and free strain which are two common factors of characterizing sensors and actuators. We finally elucidate how viscoelastic polymer matrices affect the overall magnetoelastic responses and ΔE-effect phenomenon in terms of some critical parameters such as phase concentrations, loading rates, prestresses and temperatures. The findings of this study serve as a preliminary guidance for the rational design of hybrid magnetostrictive composite materials. The proposed mathematics model can further integrate into a finite element framework for composite structure analysis.