Modeling of Magnetorheological Dampers under Various Impact Loads

Magnetorheological (MR) damper has received great attention from structural control engineering because it provides the best features of both passive and active control systems. However, many studies on the application of MR dampers to large civil structures have tended to center on the modeling of MR dampers under seismic excitations, while, to date, there has been minimal research regarding the MR damper model under impact loads. Hence, this paper investigates nonlinear models of MR dampers under a variety of impact loads and control signals. Two fuzzy models are proposed for modeling the nonlinear impact behavior of MR dampers. They are compared with mechanical models, the Bingham and Bouc-Wen models. Experimental studies are performed to generate sets of input and output data for training, validating, and testing the models: the deflection, acceleration, velocity, and current signals. It is demonstrated that the proposed fuzzy models are effective in predicting the complex nonlinear behavior of the MR damper subjected to a variety of impact loads and control signals. The proposed fuzzy model resulted in an accuracy of 99% to predict the impact forces of the MR damper.