This paper presents a novel magnetorheological damper (MRD) specifically designed for shock mitigation applications. The proposed design achieves a low off-state damping force and a wide controllable dynamic range, which are critical for semi-active shock mitigation control systems. Based on the Bingham plastic (BP) model, the relationships among off-state damping force, dynamic range, and structural parameters were derived, providing clear design guidelines. Following this analysis, a new MRD configuration was developed by reducing the piston effective area and extending the effective magnetic field length. Comparative simulations with a conventional MRD revealed that the proposed design effectively reduces the off-state damping force and significantly improves the utilization of the magnetic circuit. A prototype was fabricated and tested under both sinusoidal and impact excitations. The simulation results demonstrate that the off-state damping force was reduced by >69% while the controllable dynamic range increased by approximately 88% compared with the conventional design at 6 m/s. Experimental results up to 4.5 m/s confirm the trends predicted by simulation. These findings confirm that the proposed MRD has superior adaptability for shock mitigation systems in aerospace and defense applications.
Tang et al. (Tue,) studied this question.