Comparison of Magneto-Rheological Damper Models

Abstract

The design of automotive suspension systems is concerned with ride comfort and handling performance of the vehicle. In the last decade, semi-active suspension systems have been greatly analyzed for automotive applications as they offer the reliability of passive devices, but maintain the versatility and adaptability of active systems. Semi-active Magneto-Rheological {MR) dampers present a viable choice for suspension systems. In an MR damper, the damping characteristics can be modified with the application of a magnetic field to the coil inside the tube of the device. Although MR dampers are greatly promising for the control of vehicle suspension systems, their major drawback lies on their non-linear and hysteretic behavior. This behavior makes it a challenge to develop a model for the system. Furthermore, the first step in designing a control strategy for a suspension system is modeling the behavior of the damper in an accurate manner. The present research is focused on the modeling of an MR damper. The problem statement is centered on what type of model of an MR damper can be developed, which can accurately predict the highly non-linear behavior of the system and can be optimal for online control. For this purpose, various sets of experimental data were obtained from an industrial MR damper. Then, four state-of-the-art MR damper models were trained, analyzed and compared using quantitative and qualitative techniques. Each of the models was selected from four main modeling approaches, phenomenological, semi-phenomenological, black-box, and fuzzy-based. By the end of the research, a novel model for an MR damper was presented, which combined fuzzy techniques with semi-phenomenological modeling. The results showed that the proposed structure was able to accurately predict the behavior of the MR damper and was suitable for control purposes. The final results can be greatly applicable to the automotive industry, where better comfort and handling control systems could be developed. In addition, the results could be useful to the vast number of industries and applications where MR dampers are employed.