Abstract—This paper presents design, testing and evaluation of a Magneto-Rheological (MR) shock absorber. The devices, which fill the gap between purely passive and fully active control systems, offer a reliability of passive systems and yet it maintains the versatility and adaptability of the fully active devices. These devices are popularly known as semi-active control systems. In these devices, after application of a the magnetic field, the fluid changes from liquid to semi-solid state in milliseconds thus results in an infinitely variable, controllable shock absorber capable of generating large variable damping forces. The advantage of the MR shock absorbers over the conventional fluid shock absorbers are many, e.g., simple in construction, needs little power, quick in response, few moving parts, etc. In this paper the basic theory behind the MR Shock absorbers, its testing and evaluation is carried out and its use in vibration control is also studied. For this purpose, a MR shock absorber from Lord Corp. USA is bought and tested in the Laboratory using an electrodynamics vibration shaker and associated data acquisition system. Its performance is then studied in the form of damping force, displacement with respect to time.

Index Terms—Magneto-rheological fluid, MR shock absorber, Semi-active control system

Cite: Ashwani Kumar and S K Mangal, "Modeling, Testing and Evaluation of Magneto-Rheological Shock Absorber," International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Robotics Research, Vol.2, No. 1, pp. 71-80, January 2013.