This paper presents the comparison results of a study to identify an appropriate semi-active control algorithm for a MR suspension system from a variety of semi-active control algorithms for use with MR dampers. Five representative control algorithms are considered including the skyhook controller, the hybrid controller, the LQG controller, the sliding mode controller and the fuzzy logic controller. To compare the control performances of the five control algorithms, a quarter car model with a MR damper is adopted as the baseline model for our analysis. After deriving the governing motion equations of the proposed dynamic model, five controllers are developed. Then each control policy is applied to the baseline model equipped with a MR damper. The performances of each control algorithm under various road conditions are compared along with the equivalent passive model in both time and frequency domains through the numerical simulation. Subsequently, a road test is performed to validate the actual control performance. The results show that the performance of a MR suspension X. Dong ( ) system is highly dependent on the choice of algorithm employed, and the sliding mode control strategy exhibits an excellent integrated performance.

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To increase the output damping torque of a rotary magnetorheological (MR) damper with limited geometrical space, a novel rotary MR damper based on helical flow is proposed. A new working mode, helical flow mode, is discussed and applied to enlarge the flow path of MR fluids. The helical flow can improve the performance of the rotary damper by enlarging the length of the active region. Based on the idea, a rotary MR damper is designed. The rotary MR damper contains a spiral piston, dual-coilcore, a rotating cylinder and a stator cylinder. Based on the Bingham model, the output damping torque of the damper is analytically derived. The finite element method (FEM) is applied to calculate the magnetic field of the active region. The multi-objective optimal design method is adopted to obtain the optimal geometric parameters. A prototype is fabricated based on the optimal results. To validate the proposed rotary MR damper, two types of experiments including the low rotation speed and the high rotation speed are investigated. The results show that the proposed rotary MR damper has high torque density and compact structure. The helical flow mode can increase the output damping torque with limited space.

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Due to the complex nonlinearity of magnetorheological (MR) behavior, the modeling of MR dampers is a challenge. A simple and effective model of MR damper remains a work in progress. A novel model of MR damper is proposed with force-velocity hysteresis division method in this study. A typical hysteresis loop of MR damper can be simply divided into two novel curves with the division idea. One is the backbone curve and the other is the branch curve. The exponential-family functions which capturing the characteristics of the two curves can simplify the model and improve the identification efficiency. To illustrate and validate the novel phenomenological model with hysteresis division idea, a dual-end MR damper is designed and tested. Based on the experimental data, the characteristics of the novel curves are investigated. To simplify the parameters identification and obtain the reversibility, the maximum force part, the non-dimensional backbone part and the non-dimensional branch part are derived from the two curves. The maximum force part and the non-dimensional part are in multiplication type add-rule. The maximum force part is dependent on the current and maximum velocity. The non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA II) based on the design of experiments (DOE) is employed to identify the parameters of the normalized shape functions. Comparative analysis is conducted based on the identification results. The analysis shows that the novel model with few identification parameters has higher accuracy and better predictive ability.

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