Generation and Modeling of Asymmetric Hysteresis Damping Characteristics for a Symmetric Magnetorheological Damper

Asymmetric hysteresis damping characteristics are essential for vehicle suspension design with symmetric magnetorheological (MR) dampers. For this purpose, an asymmetric damping force generation (ADFG) algorithm is proposed by limiting the driving current to a higher value corresponding to extension and a lower value for compression, and the subsequent transient in damping force response is suppressed by a smooth modulator based on the arctan function. To describe the asymmetric hysteresis damping characteristics, an asymmetric hysteresis force-velocity (f-v) model is derived upon integrating the velocity and force offsets into the proposed symmetric synthesis, also, the model parameters are identified with least square algorithm and experimental data under various operation conditions. Excellent correlations between the model and experimental results verify the effectiveness of the algorithm and model.