Experimental Verification of Controllability of a Mixed Mode MR Fluid Mount

Abstract

With the advent of alternative energy and hybrid vehicles come new vibration problems and challenges that require nontraditional solutions. Semi-active vibration isolation devices are preferred to address the problem due to their effectiveness and affordability. A magnetorheological (MR) fluid mount can provide effective vibration isolation for applications such as hybrid vehicles. The MR fluid can produce different levels of damping when exposed to different levels of magnetic field. The fluid can be working in three modes which are the flow mode, shear mode and squeeze mode. A mixed mode MR fluid mount was designed to operate in a combination of the flow mode and the squeeze mode. Each of the working modes and the combined working mode has been studied. The mount’s performance has been verified in simulation and experiments. Based on the simulation and experimental results, it can be seen that the mount can provide a large range of dynamic stiffness. Given this range of dynamic stiffness, a controller has been designed to achieve certain dynamic stiffness at certain frequencies. The experiments are set up to realize the hardware-in-the-loop tests. Results from the experiments show that the mixed mode MR fluid mount is able to achieve desired dynamic stiffness which is directly related to vibration transmissibility.