Design and implementation of energy generated magneto-rheological damper for vehicle suspension systems

Abstract

Magneto rheological (MR) fluid based dampers are very promising for semi-active or adaptive suspension control system which is filled with MR fluid. Its huge advantages attract the researchers to use it in more advanced application. MR damper's damping force can be controlled by changing the viscosity of its internal magneto-rheological fluids (MRF). However the requirement of external power source is one of the major concerns. Self-powered MR damper is one of the recent advancement which is accomplished only for double ended MR damper. In this work an energy generated mono tube MR damper has been designed and investigated with power generation which has a huge demand in the vehicle suspension system. This damper combines the advantages of energy harvesting (reusing wasted energy) and MR damping (controllable damping force). This multifunctional integration would bring great benefits such as energy saving, size and weight reduction, lower cost, high reliability, and less maintenance for the MR damper systems. The proposed MR damper model consists permanent magnet and coil combination of energy generation. Two magnetic fields are induced inside this damper. One is in the outer coil of the power generator and another is the piston head coils. A 2-D Axisymmetric model of energy generated MR damper is developed in COMSOL Multiphysics where it is analyzed extensively by finite element method and its hardware model is tested by Universal Testing Machine (UTM). The complete magnetic isolation between these two fields is accomplished here, which can be seen in the finite element analysis and damper characteristic analysis. The energy generation ability of the MR damper model is tested by UTM and oscilloscope combination and the maximum output voltage is measured around 0.8 volts by oscilloscope. Finally, experimental dampers characteristic analysis is performed by using RD-8041-1 MR Damper. These results are compared with the hardware model experimental results, which clearly validate the hardware model damper characteristic.