Dual-stage theoretical model of magnetorheological dampers and experimental verification

Abstract The theoretical model for predicting the damping characteristics of magnetorheological dampers (MRDs) not only facilitates the optimization of MRD parameters, but also provides assistance for the theoretical design of MRDs. However, some existing models have limitations in fully characterizing the damping characteristics of MRDs. In this paper, the working stage of MRDs was categorized into yield and pre-yield stages based on whether the internal magnetorheological fluid attains the dynamic shear yield state or not, and the Herschel–Bulkley model with pre-yield viscosity (HBPV) and improved polynomial model (IPOL) were employed to respectively characterize the yield and pre-yield stages of MRDs. Subsequently, the HBPV-IPOL model was proposed to characterize the complete damping characteristics of MRDs in low-frequency vibration conditions, with considering the local loss effect of the fluid in the model. To accurately characterize the magnetic induction intensity in the MRD damping channel, employing the steady-state finite element method for magnetic field analysis; on this basis, dividing the damping channel to investigate the variation trends of the magnetic induction intensity in different regions. Simultaneously, the zero-field region hypothesis was proposed to quantitatively consider the influence of minute magnetic induction intensity in the traditional zero-field regions on the damping characteristics of MRDs. Finally, integrating the impact trends of currents in different regions, and employing the HBPV model to determine the impact magnitude of each region within the damping channel on the damping characteristics of the MRD in the yield stage. In the pre-yield stage, polynomial curves were fitted to experimental damping force–velocity curves, and the obtained polynomials were employed to predict the damping characteristics. Extensive experiments have been conducted on MRD samples to assess the predictive performance of the model on MRD damping characteristics under sinusoidal displacement excitation vibration conditions with different excitation currents, vibration frequencies and vibration amplitudes.