Analysis of the optimal design strategy of a magnetorheological smart structure

Abstract

The exploration of magnetorheological (MR) fluid applications involves many fields. Duringthe phase of theory analysis and experimental investigations, most of the research has beenin developing primary products, and the design method is becoming important in MRdevice design. To establish general design guidelines, not with the usual MR smartstructure design method which just complies with the presented yield stress of smartmaterials, in this paper, an MR smart structure design method is presented according tothe whole requirement of smart structure characteristics. In other words, the smartstructure design method does not just execute its optimization according to thepresented MR fluid features, and it can customize or select the properties of MRfluid obeying the whole system requirements. Besides the usual magnetic circuitdesign analysis, the MR fluid physical content, such as the volume fraction ofparticles, was incorporated into the design parameters of the products. At the sametime, by utilizing the structural parameters, the response time of MR devices wasconsidered by analyzing the time constant of electromagnetic coils inside the MRdevices too. Additionally, the power consumption relevant to transient usefulpower was analyzed for structure design. Finally, based on the computation of themagnetic field in a finite element (COMSOL multiphysics), all these factors wereillustrated in an MR fluid valve based on the results of a magnetic circuit design.