Title: Analysis of a magnetorheological damper incorporating temperature dependence

Authors: Nicholas L. Wilson; Norman M. Wereley; Wei Hu; Gregory J. Hiemenz

Addresses: Department of Aerospace Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA ' Department of Aerospace Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA ' Department of Aerospace Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA ' Techno-Sciences, Inc., 11750 Beltsville Dr., Beltsville, MD 20742, USA

Abstract: Aside from external environmental heating, a magnetorheological (MR) damper may internally self-heat due to both resistive heating by the electromagnetic coil and to a greater extent, by dissipating mechanical energy into thermal energy. Temperature can significantly alter damper behaviour, as the fluid viscosity and accumulator gas pressure are highly dependent on temperature. Therefore, to improve the understanding of the behaviour of a linear stroke MR damper, a damper designed for a ground vehicle seat suspension, its performance is characterised over temperatures ranging from 0 to 100°C. A hydro-mechanical analysis is used to represent MR damper behaviour when it is subjected to large temperature perturbations and captures contributions from fluid viscosity, fluid inertia and pneumatic compressibility. The effect of damper self-heating on the identified model parameters is presented and the connection of these parameters to physical properties is also discussed.

Keywords: MR damper; magnetorheological damping; temperature dependence; hydromechanical analysis; ground vehicles; seat suspension; fluid viscosity; fluid inertia; pneumatic compressibility; damper self-heating; vehicle design.

DOI: 10.1504/IJVD.2013.056102

International Journal of Vehicle Design, 2013 Vol.63 No.2/3, pp.137 - 158

Received: 14 Feb 2012
Accepted: 01 Jul 2012
Published online: 16 Oct 2014 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article