Vibration Damping in Fiber-Reinforced Bistable Composites with Magnetic Particles

Today one of the greatest engineering challenges in smart materials is the development of structural morphing materials. Multistable composites have the intrinsic ability to vary their shape, but they have some weaknesses that limit their usage in structural applications. For instance, bistable composites lose rigidity while snapping from one configuration to the other, and their transition to the new configuration is associated with undesired vibrations. This chapter focuses on solving such criticalities by inserting magnetic particles within the composite matrix. The exposure of such a bistable composite to a magnetic field allows to dampen these vibrations and increase the overall composite stiffness.