Abstract
It is now well known that smart fluids (electrorheological (ER) and magnetorheological) can form the basis of controllable vibration damping devices. With both types of fluid, however, the force/velocity characteristic of the resulting damper is significantly nonlinear, possessing the general form associated with a Bingham plastic. In a previous paper the authors suggested that by using a linear feedback control strategy it should be possible to produce the equivalent of a viscous damper with a continuously variable damping coefficient. In the present paper the authors describe a comprehensive investigation into the implementation of this linearization strategy on an industrial scale ER long-stroke vibration damper. Using mechanical excitation frequencies up to 5 Hz it is shown that linear behaviour can be obtained between well defined limits and that the slope of the linearized force/velocity characteristic can be specified through the choice of a controller gain term.
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