Development of a Compact MR Fluid Brake with High Torque-Efficiency

With the advancements in mechanical engineering, there is an increasing interest in the miniaturization of machines, and considerable research is being conducted on brakes that can be applied to actuators of small machines. In this study, a mathematical torque model and a magnetic field analysis model are used to develop a compact MR fluid brake. The generated torque due to the inner diameter, the yield stress of the MR fluid, and the disk diameter were estimated, and the magnetic field analysis model was used to improve the generated torque of the limited-sized MR fluid brake. To improve torque efficiency, a multi-disk type modular MR fluid brake with three disks was proposed and developed. To verify the efficiency of the proposed MR fluid brake, we compared the volume-to-torque ratio of the proposed brake with that of other brakes that were developed in previous studies.