A review of advances in magnetorheological dampers: their design optimization and applications

In recent years, magnetorheological (MR) fluid technology has received much attention and consequently has shown much improvement. Its adaptable nature has led to rapid growth in such varied engineering applications as the base isolation of civil structures, vehicle suspensions, and several bio-engineering mechanisms through its implementation in different MR fluid base devices, particularly in MR dampers. The MR damper is an advanced application of a semi-active device which performs effectively in vibration reduction due to its control ability in both on and off states. The MR damper has the capacity to generate a large damping force, with comparatively low power consumption, fast and flexible response, and simplicity of design. With reference to the huge demand for MR dampers, this paper reviews the advantages of these semi-active systems over passive and active systems, the versatile application of MR dampers, and the fabrication of the configurations of various MR dampers, and provides an overview of various MR damper models. To address the increasing adaptability of the MR dampers, their latest design optimization and advances are also presented. Because of the tremendous interest in self-powered and energy-saving technologies, a broad overview of the design of MR dampers for energy harvesting and their modeling is also incorporated in this paper.