Self-Powered Magnetorheological Dampers

Abstract

This paper addresses the feasibility and effectiveness of a self-powered magnetorheological (MR) damper operated by the energy harvested from vibration and shock environment. For doing so, an energy-harvesting device is theoretically constructed and added to an MR damper. This energy-harvesting device consists of a stator, a permanent magnet and a spring, and works as an energy-harvesting dynamic vibration absorber (DVA). The dynamic equation for the self-powered MR damper is derived theoretically. In order to theoretically evaluate the vibration isolation capability of the self-powered MR damper, a single-degree-of-freedom engine mounting system using the MR damper is constructed. The governing equation of motion for the engine mounting system is theoretically derived. A parametric study is conducted to find the optimal stiffness of the energy-harvesting DVA for the engine mounting system. Under various excitation displacements and a shock load, the vibration isolation performance of the engine mounting system with the self-powered MR damper is theoretically evaluated in frequency and time domains.