Non-contact tunable damping of a cantilever beam structure embedded with photo-rheological fluids

This research presents an introduction to non-contact tunable damping using a new class of photo-rheological fluids (PRFs) whose rheological behavior can be changed by using ultraviolet (UV) light. When the PRF is irradiated by UV light, its viscosity decreases; the viscosity recovers to its initial value when UV light is switched off, implying that the viscosity of PRF is reversible and tunable. We demonstrate that UV light can be used to induce the changes in the viscosity of PRFs, and that the proposed method can be successfully applied to realize non-contact tunable damping of vibrating structures. The additional advantages of PRF include no deposition associated with the single-phase solution of PRF and no electro-magnetic interference shielding.