Control system design and performance test of a magnetorheological fluid fan clutch

This research is developed and aims at a new clutch which is using MR fluids as the transmission medium. Different control policies, including double-control, PD control, fuzzy control, are respectively used in temperature control system and are simulated in simulink software. The above three control strategies are also analyzed and evaluated. Then, in order to satisfy its engineering application requirement, based on 89S51 microcontroller, a suit of real-time controlling system is designed and developed, in which its hardware system includes temperature sampling circuit, main controlling circuit and driving circuit, its software includes sampling module subprogram, controlling policy subprogram and output module subprogram. Its design scheme, its each part design and the system software design are all introduced. Finally, based the developed simulation platform and different spec MR fan clutches, some experimental results are showed. The experimental results showed its performance of the developed MR fan clutch under different control strategy meets engineering application´s requirements of the engine cooling system for armored vehicle.