Influence of Magnetorheological Semi-active Stabilizer Bar on Vehicle Roll

The smart material-magnetorheological fluids -based semi-active actuators are widely used in many applications, because of the fast response and large controllable range performances of the magnetorheological fluids. For the purpose of simultaneous improvement of the safety (anti-roll performance) and ride comfort of vehicles during fast cornering or over road irregularities, a magnetorheological semi-active stabilizer bar is proposed in this paper. The magnetorheological stabilizer bar featuring a rotary magnetorheological damper provides small torque at low cornering speed to improve ride comfort, while large torque to enhance the safety at high cornering speed. To verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed magnetorheological stabilizer bar, the mathematical model of a car is established, and the passive-on control performance of a specific full vehicle is studied via a commercial full-vehicle dynamics simulation software CarSim. In addition, a piece-wise control algorithm using lateral roll velocity information for the magnetorheological stabilizer bar is proposed to analyze the influence on vehicle roll performance. The semi-active control performance is compared, analyzed, and evaluated, with the conventional passive stabilizer bar system. © 2019 Journal of Mechanical Engineering.