Experimental investigations of the effect of temperature on the characteristics of MR damper

Abstract

This paper presents the experimental studies that are carried out to investigate the effect of temperature on the characteristics of MR damper. Active research has been carried out to study the effect of factors such as input current/voltage, frequency and amplitude of input excitation on the characteristics of the damper, but very limited research has been done on the effect of temperature on the energy dissipation and force characteristics of the damper. This warrants the current study in which the effect of temperature is investigated through experimental characterization of two commercially available dampers with different stroke lengths. It is found that the temperature is found to rise with the increase in input voltage and input frequency of excitation. This in turn affects the maximum force developed by the damper and energy dissipation capacity of the damper. This can affect the performance of dampers when applied to structural control applications.