28th Congress of the International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences, 23 - 28 September 2012, Brisbane, Australia
Paper ICAS 2012-7.8.1

DIRECTIONAL ENHANCEMENT OF COMPOSITE STRUCTURES ENERGY ABSORPTION USING MAGNETORHEOLOGICAL FLUIDS

S. H. Lim, B. G. Prusty*, G. Pearce*, D. Kelly*, R. Thomson**
UNSW / CRC-ACS, Australia; *UNSW, Australia; **ACS Pty Ltd / CRC-ACS, Australia

Keywords: magnetorheological fluids, composite, crashworthiness

This paper presents a novel concept to enhance the directional behaviour of composite structures using magnetorheological (MR) fluids, in order to improve its performance as energy absorption systems for crashworthiness. The paper includes theoretical study to investigate MR fluids compatibility to composite structures and the proposed design mechanism.

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