Vibration suppression effect of liquid crystal under electromagnetic field

This paper describes an experimental study on the vibration suppression of a laminated beam with a nematic liquid crystal under electric and magnetic fields. Firstly, a laminated beam is constructed with two thin nematic liquid crystal layers and a thin aluminum beam inside. The results under electric field show that the resonance point of the beam shifts higher, and the response displacement amplitude decreases as electric field strength increases. This is because the apparent viscosity of a liquid crystal and the stiffness of the beam change when electric field is applied. Considering these results, this laminated beam is modeled as a spring-mass-damper model and a simulation is performed based on this model. The experimental and simulation results almost agreed. Then the effect of magnetic field is investigated experimentally. The damping effect appears in high magnetic field, but this effect might be caused by magnetic damping effect due to induced current and not by the damping effect of the liquid crystal.