Vibration mitigation using passive active tunable (PAT) system: Experimental aspects

The objective of this paper is to test and model a single-degree-of-freedom vibration isolation system with a magnetorheological (MR) foam damper under harmonic and random excitations. The results of this research are valuable for understanding the characteristics of the MR foam damper and include the experimental design and results of vibration mitigations for frequency ranges up to 2000 Hz. Transmissibility and acceleration hysteresis experiments of the MR foam damper system with different levels of input current are discussed. A simple damper design that eliminates many of the constraints normally associated with fluid filled devices is presented. Constitutive equations of the Bouc-Wen model are used to validate and characterize the MR foam damper. The motion characteristics of the MR foam damper are studied. Experimental results reveal that the mechanical behavior of the MR foam damper is nonlinear and that the field-dependent behavior of MR foam damper is associated with the applied frequency and acceleration amplitude. Experiments demonstrate MR foam damper works well in controlling vibrations and can be controlled and tuned for specific applications.