Road traveling test for vibration control of a wheel loader cabin installed with magnetorheological mounts

This paper presents a semi-active type magnetorheological (MR) fluid-based mount for effective vibration control of a wheel loader cabin. Traditional passive (viscous) mounts are inadequate at providing a large damping force and low elastic modulus over a wide frequency range; hence, the ride comfort of the driver and work efficiency per day are limited. In the present study, to overcome this limitation, MR mounts were designed considering principal geometry and dimensions of existing viscous mounts and installed to a vehicle cabin for vibration control. After investigating the field-dependent dynamic stiffness of the manufactured MR mounts, a field test on road traveling was conducted. In the field test, vibrations from the vertical and horizontal directions are evaluated with respect to the vehicle speed. In addition, vibration control performances between conventional viscous mount and the proposed MR mounts were compared showing superior performances of the reduced acceleration transmissibility and amplitude with on-off controlled MR mounts.