Effect of different materials on metal foam magnetorheological fluid damper

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe paper mainly investigates the effect of different materials on metal foam magnetorheological (MR) fluid damper by simulation and experiment. The damper, with MR fluid stored in the metal foam, has the advantages of low cost and long lifetime. First the software ANSYS FEM is used to simulate the magnetic field in the different metal foams, and the magnetic flux density in the working gap and magnetic field distribution are obtained in the different excited current. Besides, a testing system, including the metal foam MR fluid damper, DC motor with speed controller, force sensor with amplifier, DAQ card and PC with LabVIEW software, is built to investigate its performance. Next the relationship between damping force and current is also obtained by changing the excited currents. As the applied samples, metal foam Ni (nickel) and metal foam Cu (cuprum) are selected to store MR fluid. The results show that, compared to metal foam Cu, metal foam Ni can provide a larger magnetic flux density. And the experimental results show that metal foam Cu MR fluid damper has a larger damping force, which implies that, for the metal foam MR dampers, the extracted volume of magnetorheological fluid (MR fluid) has a greater influence than the magnetic flux density.