Study on operational temperature of magneto-rheological fluid and design dimensions of magneto-rheological damper for optimization

Abstract

This study aims to restrict the upper limit for flow gap and effective length in magnetorheological (MR) damper for optimal performance. Initially, the sedimentation study of in-house MR fluid (25%) shows that an 8% reduction in the sedimentation ratio with the addition of additive and nonlinear Herschel-Bulkley (HB) model fit reflects a 32.5% decrease in average yield stress with increasing currents when the parallel plate gap is increased from 1 mm to 2 mm. Owing to this decrease in yield stress, further study is extended to fabricate two MR dampers with limit values (LV) of flow gap and effective length with a common magnetic outer cylinder. Testing results of MR dampers revealed a 72% reduction in damping force at 0.8 A current when the LV’s is increased from LV-1 to LV-2. Selecting LV-1 over LV-2 as the upper limit for any design optimization will give the MR damper optimal performance. At higher input parameters, amplitude has a 135% greater impact on damping force than frequency and current. It is also demonstrated that saturation magnetization depends on the applied magnetic field and input loading parameters. Finally, gravimetric analysis shows that the effectiveness of the MR fluid and magnetic particle starts to decline after 322 °C and 400 °C.