Analytical and Experimental Study of the Response of a Suspension System with a Magnetorheological Damper

A single-degree-of-freedom suspension system with a magnetorheological (MR) damper is studied. A Bouc-Wen hysteretic model is adopted to represent the nonlinear hysteretic damping force of an MR damper. The model parameter identification process is carried out based on the experimental data. The equivalent linearization and the averaging methods are employed to simplify the hysteretic nonlinear model of the system, and to obtain the system response under sinusoidal base excitation. The results obtained by these two approximate methods are compared with the results obtained from the experiments and the numerical simulation method when a swept sine excitation with amplitudes of 0.5 and 0.75 mm is applied to the system. The comparison shows that the results obtained by the equivalent linearization method and the averaging method are very similar and have a good agreement with both the experimental and the numerical results. Moreover, the effects of the hysteretic model parameters are investigated after the system dynamical equations are nondimensionalized.