Response analysis of vibration systems with ER dampers

An electro-rheological (ER) fluid is a new kind of smart fluid material which has been widely applied to various engineering problems. This paper discusses the response analysis of a vibration system with ER dampers using the viscous and bilinear hysteresis damping model. Two numerical examples for a single degree of freedom system and a multiple degrees of freedom system, are given to illustrate the applications of the present theory. The comparisons of the computational results with those of the experiment show that the response analysis method is valid.