STATE OF THE ART AND DEVELOPMENT TRENDS OF NOVEL NANOSTRUCTURED ELASTOMAGNETIC COMPOSITES

The coupling between elastic and magnetic properties of composite materials made of magnetic particles uniformly dispersed into an elastic matrix was revised. The influence of particles content and size was considered. A unified simple model of the direct and inverse elastomagnetic effect was furnished explaining the experimental results in different experimental conditions. Some applications of elastomagnetic materials in both sensors and actuators are reported and their potentiality is discussed. The correlation between strain and electric conduction in this kind of materials is also presented and the first experimental results on this topic are reported.