Regensburg 2025 – scientific programme

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CPP: Fachverband Chemische Physik und Polymerphysik

CPP 5: Composites and Functional Polymer Hybrids

CPP 5.3: Talk

Monday, March 17, 2025, 12:15–12:30, H38

Optimizing the internal structure of soft elastic composite materials — •Lukas Fischer and Andreas M. Menzel — Institut für Physik, Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg, Magdeburg, Germany

We study magnetic gels and elastomers, soft materials composed of magnetic or magnetizable particles embedded in a soft polymeric matrix material. These materials can be controlled by external magnetic fields, which induce deformations (magnetostriction) or changes in the rheological behavior (magnetorheological effect).

In particular, we investigate how these two effects depend on the arrangement of magnetizable particles within the elastic matrix. For the magnetostrictive effect, we consider model systems of spherical shape, for which we can analytically calculate how the volume change and overall elongation or contraction under applied magnetic fields depends on the configuration (within the linear elastic regime) [1]. Based on these formulae, we optimize the structures for maximized deformations, using an adaption of simulated annealing. Additionally, we investigate cubical systems for their magnetorheological effects, also presenting the internal arrangements that maximize these effects. The optimized arrangements are compared to regular lattice configurations.

The method that we present here can be transferred to the investigation of other types of soft elastic composite systems, driving them towards their full potential in light of future applications.
[1] L. Fischer, A. M. Menzel, PNAS Nexus 3, pgae353 (2024).

Keywords: Soft elastic composite systems; Magnetic gels and elastomers; Actuation; Green's function method; Material optimization