Magnetorheological dampers, or as they are more commonly called, MR dampers, are being developed for a wide variety of applications where controllable damping is desired. These applications include dampers for automobiles, heavy trucks, bicycles, prosthetic limbs, gun recoil systems, and possibly others. This thesis first introduces MR technology through a discussion of MR fluid and then by giving a broad overview of MR devices that are being developed. After giving the reader an understanding of MR technology and devices, MR damper basics are presented. This section includes a discussion of MR damper types, mathematical fundamentals, and an approach to magnetic circuit design. With the necessary background information covered, MR dampers for automotive use are then discussed. Specifically, designs for MR dampers that were built for a Mercedes ML-430 and for a Ford Expedition are presented along with their respective test results. These test results are presented and compared with the original equipment hydraulic dampers. After discussing automotive MR dampers, designs for gun recoil applications are presented. Specifically, two different MR damper designs are discussed along with live-fire test results for the first damper. Finally, two hybrid dampers that were based on a modified adjustable hydraulic damper are presented. These hybrid dampers, if pursued further, may develop into controllable replacements for large hydraulic dampers such as those installed on large vehicles and field Howitzers. In conclusion, recommendations are made for materials as well as for seal selection and other design aspects. / Master of Science

In recent years, many investigators have predicted that with a semiactive suspension it is possible to attain performance gains comparable to those possible with a fully active suspension. In achieving this, the method by which the damper is controlled is one of the crucial factors that ultimately determines the success or failure of a particular semiactive suspension. This study is an investigation into the effectiveness of a number of basic control strategies at controlling vehicle dynamics, particularly vehicle roll. The test vehicle is a Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV), a class of vehicle that regularly sees widely varying vehicle weight (as a result of passengers and load) and can exhibit undesirable levels of vehicle roll. This study includes a suspension system comprised of four controllable magneto-rheological dampers, associated sensors, and controller. There are three distinct phases in this investigation, the first of which is a numerical investigation performed on a four-degree-of-freedom vehicle roll-plane model. The model is subjected to a variety of road and driver induced inputs, and the vehicle response is characterized, with each semiactive control policy. The second phase of this study consists of laboratory testing performed on a Ford Expedition, with the front axle of the vehicle placed on a two-post dynamic rig (tire coupled), and a variety of road inputs applied. The third phase of this testing involves road testing the test vehicle to further evaluate the effectiveness of each of the semiactive control policies at controlling both vehicle comfort (vibration) and stability (roll). In each phase, the semiactive control policies that are investigated are tuned and modified such that the best possible performance is attained. The performance of each of these optimal semiactive systems is then compared. In the first phase of this investigation, two basic skyhook control strategies are investigated and two modified strategies are proposed. Upon numerically investigating the effectiveness of the four control strategies, it is found that the performance achievable with each of the control strategies is heavily dependent on the properties of the controllable damper. The properties of the controllable damper that were particularly important were the upper and lower levels of force that the controllable damper was able to apply. Based on numerical results, the controllable dampers were tuned for each control system. The results indicate that a velocity-based skyhook control policy, in conjunction with force control, is most effective at controlling both road-induced vibration and driver-induced roll. In the second phase of this investigation, the effects of the two skyhook control strategies were again examined. Multiple system inputs including step inputs, chirp inputs, and multi-sine inputs were used, and the results indicate that significant performance gains using the basic skyhook policies are unlikely. The third phase involved road testing the vehicle through specific maneuvers modeling a wide variety of common driving situations. In addition to the two basic skyhook policies, two additional policies augmented with steering wheel position feedback were also examined. It was found that the velocity based skyhook control policy augmented with steering wheel position feedback achieved performance superior to both the stock passive dampers and other control policies tested here. / Ph. D.

A computer simulation is used to examine the effects that various control methods have on the performance of semiactive dampers in controlling the dynamics of a single suspension (quarter car) model. The level of dynamic control of this model has a direct bearing on the ride comfort and vehicle handling, when the single suspension is interpreted as a partial model of a vehicle. The dynamic results obtained when using two alternative semiactive control methods are compared to the results obtained when using the more conventional control methods of passive damping, Skyhook control, and Hybrid control. The conventional control methods results confirm that the semiactive damper possesses a number of benefits when compared to passive damping. In addition, the alternative control methods, which are Displacement Skyhook and Displacement Hybrid, do not show benefits that are superior to passive damping or the conventional semiactive control methods. In support of the conclusions of this report, sufficient detail of the mathematical and numerical model is provided in the event that one should wish to recreate the results presented here. Next, the simulation results of each of the five control methods are presented individually. Several of the responses used in the results chapters are the transmissibility plots for the sprung and unsprung body displacement, the frequency spectrum of acceleration, and the frequency spectrum of the rattle space. In addition, the system response to a step input is calculated and, lastly, time traces are calculated, one at a time, for system excitations at the sprung and unsprung mass natural frequencies. The key dynamic measures studied are settling times, displacements, accelerations, and jerks. The responses just listed are then used in a comparison study between each of the presented control methods. / Master of Science

Magneto-rheological damper is a nonlinear system. In this case study, system has been identified using Neural Network tool. Optimization between number of neurons in the hidden layer and number of epochs has been achieved and discussed by using multilayer perceptron Neural Network.

This study is focused on modifying an existing solenoid valve based semi-active hydropneumatic spring-damper system using Magneto-Rheological (MR) fluid. The MR fluid's effective viscosity can be altered by application of a magnetic field. Therefore, using a magnetic/ MR valve makes it possible to change the state of the system by simply changing the applied magnetic field. A prototype MR valve was developed to determine whether a unit small enough for installation was possible. This prototype valve was designed from first principles and properties such as pressure drop over the valve (damping) and flow blocking (for switching between spring characteristics) were measured. The measured pressure drop over the valve was higher than what was design for which was due to an incorrect assumption for the viscosity of the thixotropic MR Fluid. The flow blocking ability of the valve was determined by constant force tests. Results showed that the valve could virtually block the flow of fluid for approximately a quarter of the vehicles weight. With the second prototype, the valve design and magnetic circuit design were improved. Two valves were constructed and implemented on a prototype suspension system. The damping characteristics of the system were lower than expected, however they can be improved by changing the valve geometry. The base spring characteristics are acceptable, however the higher spring characteristics fail when a high force is exerted on the strut that exceeds the valves flow blocking capability. The response time of the valve is not yet sufficient to make the system viable for real world implementation, especially under extreme conditions that can change more rapidly than the current valves. / Dissertation (MEng)--University of Pretoria, 2015. / Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering / MEng / Unrestricted

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Suspension has been the most important subsystem of the vehicle viewed as a system. The ride comfort and vehicle handling performance are affected by the suspension design. Automotive technology has been continuously incorporating developments over the past few decades to provide the end users with a better comfort of driving. Multi-objective optimization of MR damper with objective function of maximizing damping force generated by MR damper with the geometrical parametric constraint function is achieved in this research using pattern search optimization technique. Research focuses on design, modeling, and simulation of active suspension using non-linear theory of the Magneto-Rheological (MR) damper with consideration of the hysteresis behavior for a quarter car model. The research is based on the assumption that each wheel experiences same disturbance excitation. Hysteresis is analyzed using Bingham, Dahl’s, and Bouc-Wen models. Research includes simulation of passive, Bingham, Dahl, and Bouc-wen models. Modeled systems are analyzed for the six road profiles, including road type C according to international standards ISO/TC108/SC2N67. Furthermore, the comparative study of the models for the highest comfort with less overshoot and settling time of vehicle sprung mass are executed. The Bouc-Wen model is 36.91 percent more comfortable than passive suspension in terms of damping force requirements and has a 26.16 percent less overshoot, and 88.31 percent less settling time. The simulation of the Bouc-Wen model yields a damping force requirement of 2003 N which is 97.63 percent in agreement with analytically calculated damping force generated by MR damper. PID controller implementation has improved the overshoot response of Bouc-Wen model in the range of 17.89 percent-81.96 percent for the different road profiles considered in this research without compromising on the settling time of system. PID controller implementation further improves the passenger comfort and vehicle ride handling capabilities. The interdisciplinary approach of systems engineering principles for the suspension design provides unique edge to this research. Classical systems engineering tools and MBSE approach are applied in the design of the MR damper. Requirement traceability successfully validates the optimized MR damper.

Truck drivers are exposed to vibrations all day as a part of their work. In addition to repetitive motion injuries the constant vibrations add to the fatigue of the driver which in turn can have safety implications. The goal of this research is to lower the vibrations an occupant of a class 8 semitruck cab sleeper is exposed to by improving the ride quality. Unlike prior research in the area of ride comfort that target the chassis or seat suspension, this work focuses on the cab suspension. The current standard in cab suspensions is comprised of some type of spring and passive damper mechanism. Ride improvements can most easily be accomplished by replacing the stock passive dampers with some type of controllable damper; in this case Magneto-Rheological (MR) dampers. MR dampers can change damping characteristics in real time, while behaving like a passive damper in their OFF state. This means that in case of a failure to the power supply, the dampers still retain their functionality and can provide some level of damping. Additionally, MR dampers can be packaged such that they do not require any redesign of mounting bracketry on the cab or the frame, their use as a retrofitable device. The damper controller is based on the skyhook control policy pioneered by Karnopp et al. in the 1970s. A variation on skyhook control is chosen called no-jerk skyhook control. A controller called Hierarchical SemiActive Control (HSAC) is designed and implemented to allow the no-jerk skyhook controller to adapt to the road conditions. It also incorporates an endstop controller to better handle the limited rattle space of the cab suspension. The development and initial testing of the controller prototype is done in simulation using a model of the cab and its suspension. The model is derived from first principles using bond graph modeling. The controller is implemented in Simulink to ease the transition to hardware testing. The realtime prototype controller is tested on a class 8 semitruck in a lab environment using dSPACE and road input at the rear axles. The laboratory results are veried on the road in a series of road tests on a test truck. The road tests showed a need for HSAC controller. The HSAC is implemented on the test truck in a final prototype system. The test results with this system show signfiicant improvements over the stock passive suspension, especially when dealing with transient excitations. The overall research results presented show that significant ride improvements can be achieved from a semiactive cab suspension. / Ph. D.

The increased prevalence of semi-active control systems is largely due to the emergence of cost effective commercially available controllable damper technology such as Magneto-Rheological (MR) devices. Unfortunately, MR dampers exhibit highly nonlinear behavior, thus presenting an often over-looked complexity to the control system designer. With regards to controlling dampers, the well-known Skyhook Damping control algorithm has enjoyed great success for both fully active and semi-active control problems. The Skyhook design strategy is to create a control force that emulates what a passive linear damper would create when connected to an inertial reference frame. Skyhook control is device independent since it generates a desired control force command output that must be produced by the control system. For simplicity, MR dampers are often assumed to have a linear relationship between the current input and the force output at a given relative velocity. Often this assumption is made implicitly and without knowledge of the underlying nonlinearity. This thesis shows that the overall performance of a semi-active Skyhook control system can be improved by explicitly inverting the nonlinear relationship between input current and output force. The proposed modification will work with any semi-active control algorithm, such as Skyhook, to insure that the controller performance is at least as good as the performance without the proposed modification. This technique is demonstrated through simulation on a quarter-vehicle system. Hysteretic damping effects are incorporated into the modification by application of simple open loop force compensation. Laboratory testing of the hysteretic inversion process was performed with the goal of emulating an ideal linear damper without hysteresis. These results are compared with the implicit assumption thus providing a basis for validating the benefits of the improved methodology. / Master of Science

In recent years, a flurry of interest has been shown for a relatively old technology called magneto-rheological fluids, or MR fluids. Multiple types of devices have been designed to implement this versatile fluid, including linear dampers, clutches, work-piece fixtures, and polishing machines. The devices have been used in automobiles, washing machines, bicycles, prosthetic limbs, and even smart structures. This thesis focuses on another application of MR dampers, involving super-sport motorcycles. This paper introduces the topics of MR dampers and motorcycle suspensions, and why the two would be a good combination. A detailed history of MR fluids, MR dampers, and motorcycle suspension technologies is given next. After a broad outline of MR dampers and motorcycle suspensions, the method of designing and manufacturing MR dampers is discussed. The damper design for this research is presented in detail, along with the design procedure used to make it. Next, laboratory testing for it is covered, including the test equipment, test procedure, and the laboratory test results. Upon laboratory test completion, the field test setup and procedure are presented. The results of field tests with stock dampers and MR dampers with a variety of control systems is discussed. The MR dampers provided a more stable ride than that of the OEM dampers. By reducing suspension displacement, settling time, and suspension oscillations, the MR dampers were able to reduce suspension geometry instability. Lastly, concluding remarks are made on the research presented. Design flaws are discussed, as well as recommendations for future work in the same area. / Master of Science

This experimental study evaluates the dynamic response of five semi-active control policies as tested on a single suspension quarter-car system. Incorporating a magneto-rheological damper, the full-scale 2DOF quarter-car system was used to evaluate skyhook, groundhook, and hybrid control. Two alternative skyhook policies were also considered, namely displacement skyhook and relative displacement skyhook. As well as exploring the relative benefits of each of these controllers, the performance of each semi-active controller was compared to the performance of conventional passive damping. Each control policy is evaluated for its control performance under three different base excitations: chirp, step, and pure tone. Corresponding to the chirp input, transmissibilities and auto spectrums are considered for each control policy. Specifically, transmissibilities between the sprung mass displacement and the unsprung mass displacement are generated relative to the input displacement. Further, the ratio between the relative displacement across the damper and the input displacement is evaluated for each control technique. The chirp input also reveals the results of the auto spectrums of the sprung and unsprung mass accelerations. Both the step input and the pure tone input were used to generate time domain values of RMS and peak-to-peak displacements and accelerations. This study shows that semi-active control offers benefits beyond those of conventional passive damping. Further, traditional skyhook control is shown to outperform the less conventional alternative skyhook policies. / Master of Science