Application of Magnetorheological Damper in Vibration Control of Locomotive

Abstract

The simplified dynamical equations for hunting motion of locomotive are firstly established. Then the dynamical behavior of the semi-active suspension of the locomotive with magnetorheological (MR) damper is investigated, where the MR model is obtained based on experimental results. In order to compare the performance of the semi-active suspension with MR damper, the passive control suspension, the semi-active on-off control suspension and the active suspension are also discussed. The simulation results show that the semi-active suspension of the locomotive with MR damper could lower the vibration of locomotive effectively almost as the active control. Based on the control strategy presented here, not only the angular acceleration of the locomotive body could be lowered, which reduces the possibility of hunting motion, but also the yaw angles of the frontal and back bogies would be lowered, which improves the security of operation.