A two-fixed-end beam piezoelectric inertial actuator using electromagnet controlled magnetorheological fluid (MRF) for friction regulation

Abstract

Friction is an important parameter to ensure the stable working of inertial actuators. It is usually regulated by adjusting the normal pressure, which will inevitably lead to wear due to the solid-to-solid contact and consequently a degradation of the output performance. This paper proposes to generate friction with magnetorheological fluid (MRF) whose shearing stress could be adjusted by the magnetic induction from an electromagnet. An inertial actuator prototype with a two fixed-end beam asymmetric structure and a MRF friction regulation unit is fabricated to verify the feasibility of electromagnet controlled MRF in friction regulation. COMSOL and MATLAB/Simulink are used for modal analysis and dynamic analysis of the proposed actuator. Experiments are conducted to evaluate the performance of the actuator. Experiment data show that the step displacement of the actuator is dramatically affected by the magnetic induction and reaches a peak value at 8.4 mT. Under the square wave excitation signal of 25 V, 7 Hz, the minimum step displacement is 0.1 μm with a rollback rate of 0.92 at a magnetic field of 19.5 mT, the maximum step displacement is 2.53 μm with a rollback rate of 0 at a magnetic field of 8.4 mT.