Analysis of Eddy current damper for suppression of vibrations using COMSOL software

Abstract

Article history: Received 6 April, 2015 Accepted 20 July 2015 Available online 21 July 2015 An Eddy current damper uses magnets to suppress vibrations due to external excitations. These dampers also called electromagnetic dampers, have advantages of no mechanical contact, high reliability and stability, but require a relatively large volume and mass to attain a given amount of damping. The magnets respond to an external excitation field. Along with the construction of the damper, COMSOL software is used for analysis of the eddy current damper and got various results like magnetic flux density, eddy current intensity, velocity and acceleration of the moving magnet. For this a standard dimension of an automotive vehicle damper is used so that the prototype could be tested on a damper testing machine. The standard dimension is chosen to increase the adaptability, compatibility and to ease of testing the damper. After this task the response of damper under various loads is observed. Different materials of housing tube are taken to observe the effects of various parameters like flux density, current intensity and, of course, the damping capability of the prototype damper. © 2015 Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved.