Idealized hysteresis modeling of electrorheological and magnetorheological dampers

The hysteresis behavior of a linear stroke magnetorheological damper is characterized for sinusoidal displacement excitation at 2.0 Hz (nominal). Four different modeling perspectives are discussed for purposes of system identification procedures, including: (1) equivalent viscous damping, (2) nonlinear Bingham plastic model, (3) nonlinear biviscous model, and (4) nonlinear hysteretic biviscous model. By progressively adding model parameters with which to better represent pre-yield damper behavior, the force vs. velocity hysteresis model is substantially improved. The three nonlinear models represent the force vs, displacement hysteresis behavior nearly equally well. Thus, any of the three nonlinear damper models could be used equally successfully if only a prediction of energy dissipation or damping were of interest. The nonlinear hysteretic biviscous model provides the best representation of force vs. velocity hysteresis of the four models examined here.