The development of an outer multi-pole magneto-rheological damper with high dynamic range of damping force

Abstract

In the past, research of magnetorheological (MR) damper mainly focused on how to improve the damping force, response speed and the performance of its control algorithm. With the increasing application of MR dampers in engineering, the adaptability of MR dampers is required to have a greater dynamic range of damping force to achieve better vibration isolation effect in different frequencies. In order to satisfy this demand, an outer multi-pole MR damper is proposed in this paper, which adopts the design of multiple electromagnetic poles integrated in cylinder to obtain greater control range of damping force. A mathematical model of the damping force is established for the proposed MR damper followed by the general structure design of the MR damper, and optimal design is conducted to determine the main structure parameters. 3D analysis of magnetic circuit is conducted utilizing the finite element method, which is used to calculate the magnetic intensity in different areas of the MR damper. Based on the data of magnetic simulation, the mechanical characteristics of the MR damper are numerically simulated. The proposed MR damper is then manufactured and the damping force characteristics are experimentally investigated and compared with other MR dampers in previous studies. The results reveal that the dynamic range of the proposed MR damper is much larger than conventional MR dampers.