Damper Controllers For Magnetorheological Dampers And Their Application

In recent years, vibration control technologies have been improved rapidly in boththeoretical research and engineering application. Semiactive control has become anattractive research field because it can reach to the nearly same effect of active controlwith less energy. As a typical smart material, magnetorheologic (MR) fluids are matureand commercially available. MR dampers based on MR fluids has become a typicalrepresentative of semiactive controllable devices with simple structure, controllabledamping force, rapid response, strong damping force, and less energy consumption. Theapplication of MR damper has become more and more widely.Up to now, some control algorithms for the damper controller of MR dampers havebeen proposed. In this dissertation, an algorithm for damper controller of MR dampersbased on sigmoid function is proposed and the control algorithm based on signumfunction for the experimental system is validated.The major research works in this dissertation include:1. A controller algorithm for the damper controller of MR dampers based onsigmoid function is proposed and the simulation with Matlab/Simulink is implemented.The simulation results show that the control algorithm based on sigmoid function isfeasible and effective.2. In order to realize the control of MR dampers, the controllable current driver forMR dampers has been developed. The output current of the controllable current drivercan be controlled continuously by the computer. In this way, the damping force of theMR damper can be controlled by the current driver.3. The simulations on the damper controller based on different control algorithmsunder the Matlab/Simulink are carried out. The simulation results show that the controleffect based on Sign function is the best and the control effect based on Heavisidefunction is the worst among three control algorithms. Regarding the complexity and thecomputed speed, the Heaviside function method is best and the signum function methodis the worst among three control algorithms.4. In order to validate the damper controller of MR dampers based on differentcontrol algorithms, the experimental setup based on the MTS (Mechanical Testing &Simulation) 849 shocking absorber system and dSPACE system is established.5. Validated experiments to the algorithm based on signum function have beenmade. The experimental results show that the damping force of the MR dampercontrolled by the damper controller based on signum function method can track well thedesired damping force. The theoretical research and experimental validation on the damper controller ofMR dampers are explored in this dissertation, which will benefit to the research on thedamper controller of MR dampers. In dissertation, the principle of a current driver forMR dampers are proposed and realized, which establishes the foundation for applicationof MR dampers in industry.