In order to make full use of the controllable damping characteristics of magnetorheological
(MR) dampers, feedback control of the damping forces for MR dampers is necessary, which
needs extra dynamic response sensors and control systems as active control systems do.
The extra dynamic response sensors for semi-active control of the MR dampers
will increase the application cost of MR dampers, occupy the installation space,
complicate the system, and decrease the reliability. In this paper, an integrated relative
displacement sensor (IRDS) technology to make MR dampers self-sensing based on
electromagnetic induction, and the principle of an integrated relative displacement
self-sensing MR damper (IRDSMRD) based on the IRDS technology, are introduced.
The IRDSMRD mainly comprises an exciting coil wound on the piston and an
induction coil wound on the nonmagnetic cylinder. In the IRDSMRD, the coil
wound on the piston simultaneously acts as the exciting coils of the MR fluid and
the IRDS while the coil wound on the cylinder acts as the induction coil of the
IRDS. The MR fluid in the annular fluid channel and the IRDS are simultaneously
energized by the exciting coil through letting the carrier of the IRDS (AC) possess
different frequency from the current for the MR fluid (DC), which realizes the
frequency division multiplexing of the exciting coil. Based on the proposed principle
for the IRDS and IRDSMRD, an IRDSMRD is designed and modeled and the
damping and sensing performances of the designed and developed IRDSMRD
are also modeled and analyzed using the finite element method (FEM) with the
software package Maxwell 2D. The research results indicate that the function of the
relative displacement sensing property can be integrated into MR dampers, and the
designed IRDSMRD possesses large controllable damping ratio and good relative
displacement sensing performance utilizing the IRDS technology proposed in this paper.