Vibration Control of a Suspension System

via a Magnetorheological Fluid Damper

1
Motivation

• Ride quality of a vehicle is concerned with the sensation or feel of passenger in the
environment of a moving vehicle which depend upon suspension system of the vehicle.

• Mostly suspension systems are passive in nature which are tuned for particular road
profiles and control vibration with in that tuning range.

• So active and semi active suspension systems is growing rapidly due to their wide tuning
range for vibration control therefore it is very important to study effect of different road
profile on active and semi active suspension system as compare to passive suspension
system.
Objective
• To study a single-degree-of-freedom system with a MR fluid damper for the purpose
of vibration control. A mathematical model for the MR fluid damper is adopted and
compare the model with experimental results of a prototype damper by finding
suitable model parameters.

• Apply two kind of excitation for semi active system and compare their vibration
response with passive system.
Introduction
• Semi-active suspension, has the principle of controlling energy dissipation , is accepted
for automobile manufactures since they can achieve a desirable performance than the
passive suspension and there is no external power source requirement (other than for
control valve actuation).

• MR semi-active damper advantageous over mechanical semi-active suspension.

• A MR fluid is a smart fluid whose viscosity can changed when it comes in magnetic field
zone therefore it can be used in to control the damping force of a damper.

• A Bouc-Wen model, which was described by Spencer et al.[2], is most commonly used to
describe the MR damper hysteretic characteristics.
MR Damper Behavior and Modeling
An analytical model is developed for accurately describe the behavior of the MR damper.
Experiments are set up to obtain data for identification of a model for prototype MR
damper.

Based on the experimental data, a least square optimization method is employed to

determine appropriate parameters for analytical model.

Figure 1. Mechanical model for MR damper

5
Parametric Model and Governing Equation
Parametric model is governed by the following
equations:

Figure 1. Mechanical model for MR damper

14 parameters to be optimized are c0a , c0b , c1a , c1b , c0a , K1 ,x0 , μ,ϒ,ɳ,αb, αa ,A, n.
x0 for accumulator effect, α scaling value for the Bouc-Wen model, c0 is viscous damping
observed at large velocity, K0 representing stiffness at large velocity ,F – total force
generated by system, v –voltage apply to current driver, ɳ - rate of reaching equilibrium
μ, γ,A , n – variable to control the shape and size of hysteresis loop.
Experimental Setup
Experimental setup for the purpose of obtaining MR damper response data for
parameter identification.

Figure 2. Schematic test setup for MR damper Figure 3. Experimental Setup

Length of damper (in extended position) : 20.83cm

Stoke : 5cm
Maximum current in electromagnet : 2A
Resistance of the coil : 5 ohm
Frequency for shaker : 1Hz
Comparison between Model with Experimental Result
• Optimize parameters for the MR damper model by minimizing the error between the
model predicted force(fmodel) and force from experimental result(fexperimental).

𝐽 = ෍(𝑓𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 − 𝑓𝑚𝑜𝑑𝑒𝑙 )2

Table 1. Optimize Parameters for the model

Comparison between Model and Experimental Result
Result for 5 different Constant voltage (0V, 0.5V, 1V, 1.5V and 2volt) to accurately
predicts the behavior of the model.

2 volt

0 volt

0 volt 2 volt

Figure 4. Comparison of model and experimental results with constant voltage to the
MR damper
Model of Car Suspension System
• The model of a vehicle can be represented by multiple degree of freedom
system.
• A quarter vehicle model is considered as a two degree of freedom system

Figure 5.1: The model of vehicle Figure 5.2:The quarter vehicle model
Analytical Model and Free Body Diagram

Figure 6: Free body diagram for m1 and m2

By applying Newton’s second law. the equations of motion of m1 and m2 are:

Where m1 is sprung mass of quarter vehicle

m2 is the unsprung mass of quarter vehicle,
ks1 is the spring constant of suspension system
ks2 is spring constant of tire
dr2 is the damping coefficient of tire
x1 is the displacement of vehicle body
x2 is displacement of suspension system
xb is displacement of road disturbance
System Parameters
Control Algorithm and Control Laws
A semi-active vibration control system is purposed having two controllers. The outer one
is the system controller, generate the desired controlled force while the inner controller,
which is a damper controller, adjust the voltage level to track the desired force.

Figure 7: Block diagram of semi active control system

Here MR damper is modeled from parametric modeling and plant is represented by
state space equation derived from Newton’s second law equation
Control Laws
For the system controller , PID control is chosen. The desired damping force is

𝑓𝑐 = 𝐾𝑃𝐼𝐷 × 𝑌
Where KPID is PID control gain
Y is the output of the system which is (x1 – xb)

Input voltage can be expressed as :

𝑣𝑜𝑙𝑡 = 𝑉𝑚𝑎𝑥 × 𝐻 ሼ(𝑓𝑐 − 𝑓𝑑 )∗ 𝑓𝑑 ሽ

Where H is the Heaviside step function

fc is the desired damping force,
Vmax is the maximum input voltage
fd is the actual damping force of MR damper
Inputs of Simulation
The performance of the car suspension system is tested by two types of road excitations
• Bump Input
• Random Input

Figure 8: Two type of road excitation for simulation input

Results of Bump Input
• Responses of displacement of the system and the input voltage of controlled system
under bump input
• Passive system ( 0 V input voltage)

Figure 9: Simulation result of pump input

Results of Random Input
• Acceleration range of controlled system
• Acceleration range of passive system

Figure 10: Simulation result of random input(acceleration response of vehicle body)

Results of Random Input

Figure 11: Simulation result of random input (controlled voltage input and damping force)

Table 3: Comparison between 0V, 2V and controlled system under random excitation
Conclusion
• A mathematical model of MR damper is adopted. The parameters for the model are
estimated from experimental data.

• For bump excitation , the displacement of the vehicle is reduced and settling time is
faster compare to the passive system(constant voltage input 0V).

• For random excitation , MR damper can significantly reduce both the root-mean-square
amplitudes and power spectral density (PSD) of acceleration as compare to passive
system.

• Power consumption of the controlled damper is much less than that of the system with
constant voltage.
References
1. C. Y. Lai , W. H. Liao “Vibration Control of a suspension system via a Magnetorheological
Fluid Damper ”, Journal of Vibration and Control , vol. 8, pp. 525-547, 2002

2. B. F. Spencer , S. J. Dyke , M.K. Sain and J. D. Carlson “Phenomenological model of a

magnetorheological damper”, ASME Journal of Engineering Mechanics 123,230-238,1997

3. Mahmoud El-Kafafy , Samir M. El-Demerdash “Automotive ride comfort using MR fluid

damper”, Scientific Research ,vol. 4 ,179-187,2012