Author

Xiaojing Zhu

Year

2021

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

School of Mechanical, Materials, Mechatronic and Biomedical Engineering

Abstract

Vibration and impact protection have been a popular topic in research fields, which could directly affect the passengers’ and drivers’ comfort and safety, even cause spines fracture. Therefore, an increasing number of vehicle suspensions and aircraft landing gears are proposed and manufactured. Magnetorheological fluids (MRFs), as a smart material, are growly applied into the above device owing to its unique properties such as fast response, reversible properties, and broad controllable range, which could improve the vibration/impact mitigation performance.

MRF was utilized to achieve adaptive parameters of the vehicle suspensions by controlling the magnetic field strength of the MRF working areas. Generally, the magnetic field is provided by a given current, subsequently, it would consume massive energy from a long-term perspective. Thus, a self-powered concept was applied as well. This thesis reports a compact stiffness controllable MR damper with a self-powered capacity. After the prototype of the MR damper, its property tests were conducted to verify the stiffness controllability and the energy generating ability using a hydraulic Instron test system. Then, a quarter-car test rig was built, and the semi-active MR suspension integrated with the self-powered MR damper was installed on a test rig. Two controllers, one based on short-time Fourier transform (STFT) and a classical skyhook controller was developed to control the stiffness. The evaluation results demonstrate that the proposed MR damper incorporated with STFT controller or skyhook controller could suppress the response displacements and accelerations obviously comparing with the conventional passive systems.

FoR codes (2008)

0913 MECHANICAL ENGINEERING, 0910 MANUFACTURING ENGINEERING, 0906 ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING

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Unless otherwise indicated, the views expressed in this thesis are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the University of Wollongong.