Design of a Novel Magnetorheological Damper Adaptable to Low and High Stroke Velocity of Vehicle Suspension System

Abstract

In this study, a new class of magnetorheological (MR) damper, which can realize desired damping force at both low and high speeds of vehicle suspension systems, is proposed and its salient characteristics are shown through computer simulations. Unlike conventional MR dampers, the proposed MR damper has a specific pole shape function and therefore the damping coefficient is changed by varying the effective area of the main orifice. In addition, by controlling the opening or closing the bypass orifice, the drastic change of the damping coefficient is realizable. After briefly describing the operating principle, a mathematical modeling is performed considering the pole shape function which is a key feature of the proposed MR damper. Then, the field-dependent damping force and piston velocity-dependent characteristics are presented followed by an example on how to achieve desired damping force characteristics by changing the damping coefficient and slope breaking point which represents the bilinear damping property.