Semi-Active Vibration Control of Adaptive Structures Using Magnetorheological Dampers

In this study a new nonlinear hysteresis dynamic model is employed to simulate the hysteresis behavior of a commercial MR damper. The model determines the hysteresis force considering the amplitude, frequency and current excitation as independent variables. Subsequently, based on this model, the finite element formulation of the MR damper is developed and is incorporated into the finite element formulation of the whole space truss structures with embedded MR dampers. A direct integration method with inner iterative algorithm is applied to obtain the solution of the resulting nonlinear system. The experimental study has also been conducted to validate the simulation. For the experimental set-up, a 3-Dimensional space truss structure with 4 bays in which one of the members can be replaced by MR damper has been fabricated. The experimental results have shown a good agreement with the mathematical simulation. It has been demonstrated that the vibration can be efficiently suppressed by the controllable MR dampers.