Development of a Magnetorheological Damper with Self-Powered Ability for Washing Machines

Abstract

Magnetorheological (MR) dampers have been widely investigated and proposed for vibration mitigation systems because they possess continuous variability of damping coefficient in response to different operating conditions. In the conventional design of MR dampers, a separate controller and power supply are required, causing an increment of complexity and cost, which are not suitable for home appliances like washing machines. To solve these issues and to reuse wasted energy from vibration of washing machines, in this study, a self-powered shear-mode MR damper, which integrates MR damping and energy-harvesting technologies into a single device, is proposed. The MR damper is composed of an inner housing, on which magnetic coils are wound directly, and an outer housing for covering and creating a closed magnetic circuit of the damper. The gap between the inner housing and the moving shaft is filled with MR fluid to produce the damping force. The energy-harvesting part consists of permanent magnets fastened together on the shaft and induction coils wound directly on slots of the housing. The induced power from the induction coils is directly applied to the excitation coils of the damping part to generate a corresponding damping force against the vibration. In order to achieve optimal geometry of the self-powered MR damper, an optimization for both the damping part and the energy harvesting part of the proposed dampers are conducted based on ANSYS finite element analysis. From optimal solutions, a prototype of the proposed damper is designed in detail, manufactured, and experimentally validated.