Development of High Damping Magneto-rheological Mount for Ship Engines

In this paper, novel configurations of a compact and high damping force engine mount featuring magnetorheological fluid (MRF) is proposed and analyzed. In the mount, a MR valve structure with both annular and radial flows is employed to generate a high damping force. Firstly, several configurations of the MR mount are proposed. The MRF flows in the mount are then analyzed and the governing equations of the MR mount are then derived based on Bingham plastic behaviour of the MRF. Optimal design of the proposed MR mount is then considered. In the optimization, the objective is to find out the optimal structure of the MR mount that can generate a maximum damping force while the off-state force of the mount is constrained in such a manner that the force ratio of the mount is greater than a required value. Performance of the optimized MR mount is then evaluated based on finite element analysis and validated by experimental results.