Experimental Study on Magnetorheological Damper Prototype and Obtaining Its Equivalent Damping Coefficients

Abstract

In this work, a magnetorheological (MR) damper prototype that provides controllable damping force was designed, manufactured and tested. The design and dimensions of the MR damper piston were determined according to the static magnetic analysis results made in ANSYS/Emag (Electromagnetics) software. The MR damper’s damping performance was tested in laboratory by utilizing a damper testing device. The tests were carried out under different currents applied to coil of the MR damper. According to the test results, the equivalent damping coefficients of the MR damper were calculated for different currents. The test results show that the highest damping force is 169.4 N with frequency of 3.18 Hz and applied current of 2 A. In this case, the equivalent damping coefficient is 302 Ns/m. The equivalent damping coefficient is 181 Ns/m when no current is supplied to the coil. The area of the dynamic force range also becomes larger with increasing the applied current. In addition, according to the quarter car model based simulation results in MATLAB/Simulink, it was seen that the semi-active suspension system using MR damper was more effective and successful in vibration mitigation.