A new magnetorheological mount featured by changeable damping gaps using a moved-plate valve structure

In this work, a new type of a magnetorheological (MR) fluid mount is proposed and its performances are experimentally investigated. The design of this MR mount is based on two operating modes of MR fluid: flow mode and shear mode. These modes are applied to the mechanism design consisting of two components: a fixed plate for applying the flow mode, and a moved plate for applying the shear mode of MR fluid motion. These plates belong to the valve-type structure of MR mount. The primary objective using the moved plate is to overcome the block-up phenomenon which frequently occurs in the conventional-type MR mount, in which there is no flow of MR fluid through the damping gap. In this research, a laboratorial fluid (MRF140) is used in the design and optimization of MR mount. This fluid features plate-like particles unlike the sphere particles. The yield stress of the fluid is measured as a function of the magnetic field and the theoretical analysis for the mount design is undertaken using the properties of the MR fluid, followed by design optimization. The objective function is concentrated on maximal damping force of the MR mount subjected to parameter constraints. Based on the results of optimization, the proposed MR mount is manufactured and tested for the performance evaluation. Vibration control capability and block-up phenomenon are investigated and compared between the proposed and conventional MR mounts.