Optimal magnetorheological damper for two-wheeled vehicle using analytical method

Magnetorheological (MR) fluid technology has gained significant development in effectively isolating undesirable vibrations by use of MR fluids acting as a dissipating medium in a damper. The current work aims at optimally designing an MR damper for a commercial 110 cc two-wheeled vehicle; this damper could replace the conventional passive damper. The geometric dimension of the valve is designed in such a way that it should match the performance of the passive damper in field-off state and includes dimensional constraints from the geometry of the vehicle. After the dimensions of the damper are decided on, valve geometry is optimised in the MATLAB environment for multiple objective functions using an analytical method of solving a magnetic circuit. Further, the optimised MR damper is implemented in a 5-DOF half-car vibration model developed and the response is then compared with that of the vehicle model with conventional passive dampers at both ends.