An approach for characterizing twin-tube shear-mode magnetorheological damper through coupled FE and CFD analysis

Abstract

The most promising technology in the field of semi-active suspension systems is the use of magnetorheological property of MR fluid, whose material behavior can be controlled through external magnetic field. Devices developed based on this principle are adaptive and controllable as desired for a specific application. It is important to understand the damping characteristics of these devices before employing them, using experimental or computational approaches. In the present work, both experimental and computational methods have been adopted for characterizing a twin-tube MR damper with an intention to develop a computational approach as an alternative to experimental test in the preliminary design stage. Initially, experimental characterization of MR damper was carried out at 1.5 and 2 Hz frequencies for damper stroke length of ± 5 mm under different DC currents ranging from 0.1 to 0.4 A. Later, coupled finite-element and computational fluid dynamic analysis has been carried out to estimate the damping force under same conditions as used in the experiment. The results of computation are in good agreement with experimental ones. Furthermore, using this computational approach, the damping force at different frequencies of 1.5, 2, 3, and 4 Hz has been estimated and its time histories are also plotted. The influence of fluid flow gap on the damping force has been determined and results revealed that damping force behaves inversely with fluid flow gap.