Relative Assessments of Current Dependent Models for Magneto-Rheological Fluid Dampers

The magneto-rheological dampers exhibit hysteretic and nonlinear force-velocity characteristics, which are strongly dependent upon the nature of excitation and applied current. An independent current function is proposed that could enhance the current-dependent damping force prediction ability of the selected models, when integrated with the hysteretic force function. These models included modified linear biviscous, polynomial, extended Bouc-Wen and generalized sigmoid function models. The validity of the modified models and the proposed current function is examined by comparing the model results with the measured data under different currents and excitation conditions. The results show that the integration of the proposed current function could significantly enhance the performance of all the models in predicting current-dependent hysteretic damping force. The relative error analyses revealed that the modified Bouc-Wen and sigmoid function models can provide reasonably good characterization of the nonlinear and hysteretic MR damping force over range of currents and excitation conditions considered in the study