Experimental and Theoretical Development of Multiple Fluid Mode Magnetorheological Isolators

The experimental and theoretical development of a multiple fluid mode magnetorheological isolator is addressed in this study. First of all, a multiple fluid mode magnetorheological isolator that operates using shear, flow, and squeeze modes, and can isolate multi-degree-of-freedom excitations, is configured and fabricated. The damper characteristics of the magnetorheological isolator are experimentally evaluated using metrics of equivalent viscous damping and complex stiffness. To analytically predict the damper characteristics of the magnetorheological isolator, the Bingham-plastic isolator model is constructed and its important model parameters are identified using an averaging method derived from sinusoidal force-displacement and force-velocity data. Comparison of the measured and predicted results using the Bingham-plastic isolator model is conducted. To improve model prediction ability, a nonlinear hysteretic model is introduced. Comparison of the two isolator models is conducted using extensive experimental results.