Experimental testing and modelling of a rotary variable stiffness and damping shock absorber using magnetorheological technology

This article presents a novel rotary shock absorber which combines the abilities of variable stiffness and variable damping by assembling a set of two magnetorheological damping units, one of which being placed in series with a rubber spring. This allows the damping and stiffness to be controlled independently by the internal damping and the external damping units, respectively. A test bench was established to verify the variable stiffness and damping functionality. The experimental results for variable damping test, variable stiffness test and co-working test are presented. At the amplitude of 10° and the frequency 0.5 Hz, increases of 141.6% and 618.1% are obtained for damping and stiffness separately if the corresponding current increased from 0 to 1 A and from 0 to 2 A, respectively. A mathematical model is then developed and verified to predict the changing of the damping and stiffness. The test results and the simulated model confirm the feasibility of the shock absorber with the ability of varying damping and stiffness simultaneously.