Methodology on a novel magnetorheological valve controlled damper synthesis design

Semi-active suspension has been increasing interests for its outstanding performance and high cost effectiveness, and the magnetorheological (MR) damper is a hotspot in these decades. For the MR damper design, here still are some farther challenges, such as, (1) how to cascade the ideal damper characteristic from full vehicle performance, and what is the ideal off-state performance and the controllable ratio; (2) how to fix the MR damper brought additional mass since the MR fluid density is three times than the traditional damper oil's, and a promising lightweight and effective configuration and its systematical design approaches should be explored. In this article, the novel MR valve controlled damper (MRVD) and its top-down design methodology are proposed via both the configuration design and system syntheses. Results manifest that the developed MRVD prototype matches the target minibus requirement very well with consumption of 3 W drive power and 6.1 ml MR fluids, demonstrating superior dynamic performance, lightweight compact structure, low energy consumption and cost, and a promising application in semi-active suspensions.