Analysis and Prediction of Performance of MR Damper at Different Currents and Control Strategies for Quarter Suspension System of a Roadway Vehicle

Ride comfort and vehicle handling are the two major issues to be dealt in the design of suspension systems of automobiles. With passive systems offering contrariety on these two parameters, the alternative systems are being in study. Magnetorheological (MR) damper, a most feasible semi-active device, is one such alternative, which will offer the advantage of dealing with both these issues overcoming contrariety. In this study, the suspension system of a car using MR damper is analysed at 5 different currents viz., 0A, 0.25A, 0.5A, 0.75A, 1A, using 2DOF quarter car model and 4DOF half car models for ride comfort and handling and the comparisons of these are done with same suspension system equipped with regular passive damper. A MR damper is built-up using MR fluid consisting of carbonyl iron powder and silicone oil added with additive. Further, the characteristic of this damper is established by conducting experiments, which in turn is used to identify the parameters of Spencer model for MR damper. Using Spencer model of MR damper, at 5 different currents, the quarter car and half car models of vehicle suspension system are simulated by implementing a semi-active suspension system for analysing the resulting displacement and acceleration in the car body. The ride comfort and vehicle handling performance of each specific vehicle model with passive suspension system are compared with corresponding skyhook, ground hook and hybrid based semi-active suspension systems. The simulation and analysis are carried out using Matlab/Simulink.