Design and control of a hybrid mount featuring a magnetorheological fluid and apiezostack

Abstract

In this study, a hybrid mount featuring a magnetorheological (MR) fluid and a piezostackis devised to reduce vibrations occuring in dynamic systems which are operated in a widefrequency range. An MR fluid is adopted to improve isolation performance at resonant lowfrequencies, whereas a piezostack actuator is adopted for performance improvement atnon-resonant high frequencies. As a first step, a passive rubber part is manufactured andits dynamic characteristics are experimentally evaluated. By adopting the MR fluid and thepiezostack, semi-active and active actuating mechanisms are devised and theirmathematical models are derived. In particular, the magnetic circuit for MR operationis optimally designed via finite element analysis. After evaluating the dynamiccharacteristics of the manufactured MR device and inertial piezostack actuator, theproposed hybrid mount is then established by integrating them with the rubberpart. Subsequently, a vibration control system is constructed using the proposedhybrid mount, and a sliding mode controller (SMC) is designed to attenuate thevibrations transmitted from the base excitation. Control performances of theproposed mount are experimentally evaluated in time and frequency domains.