Applied Mathematical Modelling 38 (2014) 23662376

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Applied Mathematical Modelling

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apm

Dynamic model for a magnetorheological damper

R. Zalewski a, J. Nachman b, M. Shillor b,, J. Bajkowski a
a
b

Institute of Machine Design Fundamentals, Warsaw University of Technology, Narbutta 84, 02-524 Warsaw, Poland
Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Oakland University, 2200 N. Squirrel Rd, Rochester, MI 48309, USA

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 8 October 2012
Received in revised form 20 August 2013
Accepted 8 October 2013
Available online 1 November 2013
Keywords:
Magnetorheological damper
Smart material
Contact
Friction
Dynamic differential inclusion
Numerical simulations

a b s t r a c t
A lumped mass thermo-mechanical model for the dynamics of a damper lled with a
magnetorheological uid is described, analyzed, and numerically simulated. The model
includes friction and temperature effects, and consists of a differential inclusion for the piston displacements coupled with the energy balance equation for the temperature. The uid
viscosity is assumed to be a function the temperature and electrical current, which in practice may be used as the control variable. Numerical simulations of the system behavior are
presented. In particular, the simulations of an initial impact show how the subsequent
oscillations can be effectively damped.
2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
In this work we model and numerically simulate the dynamics of a damper that contains a magnetorehological (MR)
uid.1 Such uids, typically, consist of micron-size ferrous particles dispersed in a working uid. They are characterized by rapid
changes in the uid viscosity resulting from the rearrangement of the particles in the uid due to changes in the applied magnetic eld. The application of such uids in dampers allows control of their damping characteristics, adjusting them to the varying needs of the system. This property qualies MR uids as smart materials. Dampers with MR uids may offer an improved
control of vibrations in airplanes upon landing, in cars, mechanical and medical devices, and industrial machinery. An innovative use may be in vibration control of prosthetic devices.
This work is a continuation of the study in [1], where a basic quasi-static model was developed and numerically simulated. Here, we investigate the dynamic case that takes into account the inertial term and may exhibit oscillations, which
the quasi-static model cannot. Our main interests are in the response of the system to an applied periodic force, and to
an initial impulse.
A detailed description of the applied aspects of vibration control of systems using MR dampers can be found in the recent
monograph [2], where many applications and references can be found. Here, our interest lies in the mathematical and
numerical aspects of the model.
The literature on MR uids is rapidly growing, see, e.g., [38] and references therein. Some of the applications described in
these references are to semi-active control of the motion of structures caused by seismic disturbances. It is seen that this
semi-active control is emerging as one of the rst applications of MR uids. In view of the major earthquake that hit Japan
Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 248 370 3439; fax: +1 248 370 4184.
E-mail addresses: robertzalewski@wp.pl (R. Zalewski), nachman@oakland.edu (J. Nachman), shillor@oakland.edu (M. Shillor), Jerzy.Bajkowski@simr.
pw.edu.pl (J. Bajkowski).
1
MR uid is abbreviation of magnetorehological uid.
0307-904X/$ - see front matter 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apm.2013.10.050

R. Zalewski et al. / Applied Mathematical Modelling 38 (2014) 23662376

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(of magnitude 9.0 on the Richter scale, on 11 March 2011) it is a subject of intensive academic and applied study. Moreover,
an internet Google search for an MR uid resulted in a large number of items, mostly industrial but many academic.
Additional results are in [913] and the references therein. MR dampers were investigated experimentally in [9,10] and
modeled as lumped mass systems. Finally, we refer to the item on MR uids in [14] where additional explanations and
references can be found.
The constitutive relations of MR uids, that is, the relationship between the strain rate and the stress [1113], and the
dependence of the viscosity on the current, which is of fundamental importance, seem to be in their infancy. Related work
on smart materials, dealing with constitutive equations for granular materials, can be found in [1517].
We model the damper as a lumped mass system, as in [1], and propose a general constitutive relation which is represented, essentially, by a viscosity coefcient and a friction bound that depend on the magnetic eld via the electric current,
and on the system temperature. However, the exact way the viscosity of the MR uid depends on the current is an open
question, and in the theoretical part we do not specify the exact form. This will have to be established experimentally for
different MR uids, possibly by using the model simulations and a parameter identication approach. A dependence of
the viscosity coefcient on the temperature can be seen in many uids, and we assume that this is the case with MR uids,
too. Similarly, the precise dependence of the friction bound on the control variable, the electric current, and on the temperature needs to be determined experimentally. Initial steps in this direction can be found in [9,10] where only the friction
bound was assumed to be controlled by the current.
The model consists of a differential inclusion for the displacements of the piston coupled with the energy balance equation for the system temperature. It includes contact and friction which lead to the set inclusion part, and also the restoring
force generated by the air bubble. The system is highly nonlinear and its analysis will be the topic of future work. An algorithm for the model was developed in which the contact and friction conditions were regularized. Then, it was written in
Mathematica and many examples generated. A few typical ones are presented and discussed in this work.
The rest of the paper is structured as follows. Section 2 presents the setting of the problem and the model. The algorithm
for the model is in Section 3, and numerical simulations can be found in Section 4, where four representative examples are
presented. Section 5 concludes this work and poses some unresolved issues for future research.
2. Theory/model
We follow [1], with appropriate modications, and describe a lumped mass model for the dynamics of the thermomechanical state of a damper. The system is depicted in Fig. 1 and consists of a tube lled with an MR uid, a piston, a piston
head, and an air bubble (marked G) which is separated from the MR uid by a diaphragm. There are thin channels inside the
piston head where the MR uid may ow from one side to the other, and by changing the viscosity of the uid one can control the uid ow in these channels.
The heart of the device is the part that allows use of electric current to control the uid ow in the channels. This is done
by a coil, which carries a variable electric current, that is situated inside the piston head, and is connected to a current source
via wires in the piston. By changing the electric current in the coil, the magnetic eld in the head changes causing changes in
the viscosity or damping coefcient mD of the uid inside the channels. In this manner the systems damping is effectively
controlled, within certain bounds. Indeed, the purpose of such a smart material damper is to adapt the response of the damper to the rapidly changing system environment.
An external load F, which may be periodic or impulsive, acts on the piston, while the uid viscosity and the friction between the head and the tube generate opposing forces. The dissipated mechanical energy causes the system temperature to
raise, affecting the uid viscosity. The gas bubble G returns the piston head to its equilibrium position once the load is removed and prevents it from hitting the right end of the tube.
The length of the casing tube is L, and in the absence of loads the MR uid occupies 0 < x < l and the bubble occupies
l < x < L. The cross section of the tube (and the head) is denoted by A and that of the piston Ap . The combined mass of
the piston and the head is m; lp is the length of the piston shaft, and the static state bubble volume is V 0 L  lA.
The model is set in terms of the total or system averaged quantities which depend only on time. We denote by y yt the
_
position of the piston, measured from x 0, and by y_ yt
its velocity, where a dot above a symbol denotes the time derivative. We denote by h ht the system temperature, measured with respect to the ambient temperature hamb . The MR uid
is assumed incompressible and p pt denotes the pressure in the bubble and in the uid. The resistance force provided by
_
damping is mD y.
The friction force n nt which is due to the contact of the pistons head with the casing, is given by

Fig. 1. Schematic MR damper.

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R. Zalewski et al. / Applied Mathematical Modelling 38 (2014) 23662376

jnj 6 T 0 ;

y_ 0 then n 

and if

y_
T :
_ 0
jyj

2:1

Here, T 0 is the friction bound, which is the maximal resistance force that friction can cause. It is assumed to depend on the
temperature and the velocity, and will be discussed shortly. The condition says that the largest friction force possible is T 0 ,
and when slip takes place (y_ 0) the frictional resistance force has modulus T 0 and opposes the motion.
We rewrite the friction condition (2.1) in a more convenient way. Let @jzj denote the subdifferential of the function jzj, i.e.,
it is the graph

8
>
< 1
@jzj 1; 1
>
:
1

if

z < 0;

if

z 0;

if

z > 0:

The graph of T 0 @jzj, with T 0 T 0 v ; h, is depicted in Fig. 2. We may write the friction law (2.1) as

_ h@jyj:
_
n 2 T 0 y;

2:2

_ h, when y_ < 0 then

This means that n is selected by the system out of the graph as follows: when y_ > 0 then n T 0 y;
_ h, and when y_ 0 the resistance force n has the value in the interval T 0 y;
_ h; T 0 y;
_ h that exactly balances
n T 0 y;
the other forces, preventing any motion.
Next, we derive an expression for the pressure generated by the piston motion in the uid and the bubble (assumed to be
a perfect gas). The system is designed so that in the static state (F 0; y 0, and y_ 0) the pressure in the bubble is high
(over 20 atm). When the piston starts to move from y P 0 the restoring force acting on the piston head is F b ptAp and is
the difference between the force pA acting to the left and the force pA  Ap acting to the right. As the piston moves a distance yt, the gas volume is V 0  ytAp , the gas temperature is ht hamb , and assuming that the gas obeys the perfect gas
law, we obtain

pt d

ht hamb
;
V 0  ytAp

where d is related to the gas constant and number of moles. In equilibrium y h 0 and p p0 , therefore, p0 V 0 dhamb .
Since A; p0 ; L, and l are given, d p0 V 0 =hamb . For the sake of convenience, we let c p0 V 0 Ap =hamb . We conclude that the
net force caused by the pressure on the piston head is

F b ptAp c

ht hamb
:
V 0  ytAp

2:3

We note next that there are two different design cases, depending on the equilibrium volume of the bubble V 0 and the
maximal amount of displaced liquid volume by the piston lp Ap .
(i) V 0 > lp Ap , then the maximal bubble force is

F b max c

hmax hamb
;
V 0  l p Ap

where hmax is the maximal temperature in the system. In this case the motion of the piston is constrained mechanically, so
that y 6 lp , and when y lp the left end of the piston contacts the dampers casing tube.
(ii) V 0 6 lp Ap , then the bubble reaction force is not bounded, and indeed

F b max  lim c
yAp !V 0

hmax hamb
1:
V 0  yAp

However, physically, the bubbles volume cannot degenerate to zero, so any applied force is counterbalanced by the bubble.
Usually, in engineering applications, the design is of type (i), which we assume below. We note that if the temperature
range in an application is small, as compared to hamb , one may neglect h, which simplies the model. However, there are cases

Fig. 2. The graph of T 0 @jzj.

R. Zalewski et al. / Applied Mathematical Modelling 38 (2014) 23662376

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when the temperature range may be bigger and, moreover, there is some indication that temperature spikes may happen
when the loading is impulsive. So, for the sake of generality we take thermal effects into account in the model.
The damper design is such that the piston is constrained to non-negative displacement by a rigid diaphragm. Therefore,
we introduce the constraint 0 6 y 6 lp , which leads to a Signorini-like unilateral conditions. A simple way to describe it is to
let I0;lp  denote the indicator function of the interval 0; lp , and then its subdifferential is the graph or multifunction,

8
1; 0
>
>
>
<
0
@I0;lp  z
>
> 0; 1
>
:
;

if

z 0;

if

0 < z < lp ;

if

z lp ;

otherwise:

Then, the resistance force f of the diaphragm or the dampers casing exactly constrains y to be in the interval 0; lp , thus

ft 2 @I0;lp  yt:

2:4

These considerations show that the force balance in the MR damper is

mD y_ F F b n f:
my

2:5

We turn now to the thermal behavior of the damper. We denote by cp the heat capacity of the whole system. The viscous
_ T 0 jyj.
_ The system is exchangenergy dissipation rate, or power, is mD y_ 2 , and the frictional heat generation is given by jnjjyj
ing energy with the environment at a rate hh, where h is the coefcient of heat exchange. Finally, the electric current generates heat at the rate IR2 , where I is the current and R is the coils resistance. The work generated or absorbed by the external
_ however, these do not contribute to the internal energy.
force and by the gas bubble is given by Eb F b y,
The internal energy rate balance is

_  hh:
cp h_ IR2 mD y_ 2 T 0 jyj

2:6

We assume that m; R; h, and cp are positive constants determined experimentally. The current, which is the control
parameter, depends on time, I It, and can be adjusted externally. Also, the viscosity function mD depends on the current
_ thus,
and temperature, while the friction bound T 0 depends on the temperature and the slip rate y,
_ h. In the experimental setting we have in mind, the temperature range is 0100 C, so the depenmD mD I; h; T 0 T 0 y;
dence of T 0 on the temperature is likely to be mild. For the sake of generality, we keep it in the model.
Collecting all the elements in (2.1)(2.6) together leads to the following formulation of the thermomechanical model for the
dynamics of an MR damper.
Problem 1. Find the displacement function y : 0; T ! R and the temperature function h : 0; T ! R such that

mD y_  F b  F 2 T 0 y;
_ h@jyj
_ @I0;lp  y;
my

2:7

_  hh;
cp h_ IR2 mD y_ 2 T 0 jyj

2:8

F b c

ht hamb
V 0  ytAp

2:9

for t 2 0; T, and initially,

y0 y0 ;

_
y0
v0;

h0 h0 :

2:10

Here, 0; T is the time interval of interest, h0 is the systems initial temperature (very likely to be 0, i.e., the ambient temperature) and y0 and v 0 are the initial position and velocity of the head, respectively.
The model is nonlinear and consists of a dynamic differential inclusion coupled with the equation for the temperature.
The coupling of the mechanical and thermal equations is via the temperature dependence of mD and T 0 , the viscous and friction dissipation terms in (2.8), and the bubble term F b . The system is highly nonlinear and its analysis will be provided
elsewhere.
y_ 0 and the external force F must be balThe static states y; h of this system are simple to obtain. In a static state y
anced by the force of the bubble. Setting h_ 0 in (2.8) yields that the energy generated by the current must equal the energy
lost to the environment. Thus, the static temperature is given by

IR2
:
h

The position of the head y y is obtained from the balance of forces F F b , thus

y max



V 0 ch hamb

;0 ;
FAp
Ap

which guarantees that 0 6 y.

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3. Numerical method
We describe shortly an algorithm for the numerical solutions of the model. For the sake of convenience, we rewrite it in
_ Next, since the implementation of subdifferential relations in numerical schemes is complicated,
terms of the velocity v y.
_
we approximate @I0;lp  y and T 0 @jyj.
We replace the subdifferential @I0;lp  y, for a given e > 0 (small), with the function Ge y, Fig. 3(left), which is of the
so-called normal compliance type,

8 1
>
<  e y  lp if lp < y;
Ge y 0
if 0 6 y 6 lp ;
>
: 1
e y
if y < 0:

3:1

This means that we allow the piston to overshoot y lp or reach y < 0, that is to violate the constraints, but this is penalized
with resistance that is proportional to 1=e. As we describe below, this introduction of the stiffness 1=e leads to natural oscilp
lations with frequency 1= me. Next, we replace the friction subdifferential @jv j with the function He v ,

H e v

8
>
<1

if

v
>e
:

e 6 v;

if  e 6 v 6 e;

1 if

3:2

v 6 e:

Then, we replace the graph T 0 @jv j with the function T 0 He v , Fig. 3(right).
We use in the numerical simulations the following approximate problems, for a given xed (but small)

e > 0.

Problem 2. Find the displacement, velocity, and temperature functions ye ; v e ; he : 0; T ! R, such that,

mv_e mD v e  F b T 0 v e ; he He v e F Ge ye ;

3:3

cp h_ e IR2 mD v 2e T 0 jv e j  hhe ;

3:4

ye t y0
F b c

v e sd s;

3:5

he t hamb
V 0  ye tAp

3:6

for t 2 0; T, where c p0 V 0 Ap =hamb , and initially

v e 0 v 0 ;
Below,

he 0 h0 :

3:7

e is xed and we omit the subscript e from the approximate solutions.

Naturally, we expect that the solutions of the approximate problems, Problem 2, converge to the solution of Problem 1,
which guarantees that as e ! 0 the approximations improve. However, the issue is unresolved, yet, and we plan to address it
in the future.
4. Results and discussion
The system (3.3)(3.7) was solved numerically using the NDSolve in Mathematica 8. Standard settings were used with an
increase in allowable number of steps, [18]. The run times were virtually instantaneous. We turn to the results of the numerical experiments we conducted, using the computational algorithm described above. Among the many computer runs, we

Fig. 3. The functions Ge y (left), and T 0 He v (right).

R. Zalewski et al. / Applied Mathematical Modelling 38 (2014) 23662376

2371

present four different sets of simulations that depict different aspects of the model. The values of the system parameters
used in each example are:

0:20 kg

mass of the piston and head

0:115 m

length of the damper

0:10 m

length of the damper without the bubble

lp

0:08 m

length of the piston shaft

1:021  103 m2

cross section area of the head

Ap

7:85  105 m2

cross section area of the piston

4:5 X

electrical resistance

p0

1:0265  106 kg=m s2

3

initial bubble pressure

kg m =s K bubble pressure constant

5:35  10

cp

2000 J=kg K

1:7 J=kg s K

coefficient of heat exchange

T0

0:2

friction bound

hamb

294 K

ambient temperature

heat capacity of the system

Then,

V 0 L  lA 1:53  105 m3 ;

p0 V 0 Ap
dAp 4:2  106 kg m4 =s2 K:
hamb

The values of the parameters that changed from simulation to simulation are given when appropriate.
The main issue that will need substantial future research is the functional dependence of the viscosity on the applied current and temperature. In this work, following the ideas in [1], we used the following viscosity function,

mD I; h d1 0:1 d2 minfI; I0 g expd3 h;

4:1

with MR pre-exponent d1 , current growth coefcient d2 , and temperature decay coefcient d3 . Here, I0 is a saturation current,
corresponding to the saturation magnetic eld, at which value all the ferromagnetic material in the uid is fully aligned with
the eld and increase of the current above I0 does not change the viscosity. In the experimental setting in [9,10], it was found
that I0 2 Amp.
Since in most of the applications we have in mind the temperature increases are small, the simulations, except Example 3,
assume that the temperature is constant, set as h 0. Actually, in all four the simulations, we found that the temperature
variations were small, so we present only one set with variable temperature.
The qualitative types of the system behavior are depicted in the following four sets of numerical simulations.
4.1. Example 1: initial displacement
The rst example describes the response of the isothermal model when initially the system is displaced with zero velocity
and there is no applied force (F 0). This provides insight into the way the system returns to equilibrium, once the piston
head is displaced. As one would expect, the behavior depends substantially on the viscosity, and on the normal compliance
or regularization stiffness 1=e, which is discussed below.
The initial conditions were y0 0:04 m; v 0 0 m=s; friction was not taken into account (T 0 0), also d2 1; d3 0,
and the values of d1 in the viscosity function (4.1), the currents I, and e were chosen as

d1 1; 4; 10;

e 0:001; 0:0005;

I 0:0; 0:5; 0:2; 0:5; 1:0; 2:0;

where the current (in Amp) was independent of time.
The results of some of the simulations are depicted in Figs. 57. It follows from (3.3) that the equilibrium position y of the
piston is obtained from F b Ge , thus, for this set of parameters,

Ap y2  V 0 y  echamb 0;
hence, for

e 0:001
V0 

q
V 20 4Ap echamb
2Ap

0:061;

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R. Zalewski et al. / Applied Mathematical Modelling 38 (2014) 23662376

Fig. 4. Ex. 1. yt; d1 1;

0.5

e 0:0005, and I 0:2.

1.0

1.5

0.05

0.10

Fig. 5. Ex. 1. yt; d1 4; e 0:001, and I 1

0.04

0.02

0.5

1.0

0.02

0.04

0.06

Fig. 6. Ex. 1. yt; d1 10;

e 0:0005, and I 0:5.

1.5

R. Zalewski et al. / Applied Mathematical Modelling 38 (2014) 23662376

_
Fig. 7. Ex. 1: The phase plane trajectory yt
vs. yt; d1 1,

2373

e 0:0005, and I 0:2.

since the pressure in the bubble pushes the piston to the left of y 0. It seems to be unrealistic, and reects the fact that
e 0:001 is too large, making the left end of the case too exible. When e 0:0005 we nd y 0:034, and when
e 0:0001 then y 0:008, which is more reasonable.
Next, we remark that the term Ge leads to oscillations with frequencies

rad

x0 p 70:71; 100; 223:6

11:25; 15:91; 35:59 Hz
s
me
for e 0:001; 0:0005; 0:0001, respectively. Clearly, when e ! 0 the frequency of these oscillations increases without bound.
It was found that Mathematica could deal with e 0:0001 for only a limited period of time before declaring an unspecied
error, however with sufcient damping it was well behaved. Moreover, the solution was found to depend considerably on
the stiffness 1=e when the damping was small. Nevertheless, the damping behavior was found to be seemingly independent
of e in the sense that the envelopes (such as in Fig. 4) were almost identical for various values of the parameter.
The frequency of the oscillations due to the stiffness 1=e is clearly seen. The main conclusion is that higher viscosity brings
the system much quicker to rest. The changes in the viscosity depicted in Figs. 46 are due to the values of the coefcient d1
and the current I. Additional simulations with different values of the parameters d1 and I yielded very similar results. A typ_
ical phase plane trajectory yt; yt,
for 0 6 t 6 10 of the system in Fig. 5 is depicted in Fig. 7, where the scale on the y0 axis
was increased 50-fold to show better the approach to the static solution y; 0 0:034; 0. Note that in Fig. 6, the damping
is heavy, d1 10 and I 2, there was only one oscillation, and the system approached equilibrium very quickly.
These basic results indicate that the model predictions are in line with what is expected, and also with what is observed,
although the latter is not presented in this work, and will be the subject of future research.
4.2. Example 2: oscillating force
The second set of simulations investigates the system reaction to a periodic applied force. This is often the case in systems
that cycle or rotate, such as engines or motors. The various coefcients were the same as in Ex.1, except that initially y0 0,
and the force was chosen as

Ft 5 sinxt;

for x 10; 20; 30; 45; 70:7; 101; rad=s:

The displacement yt, in the case x 101, is depicted in Fig. 8.

It is seen that after a short transient (0 6 t 6 0:5), the displacement is periodic and follows the force.
Next, following [9,10], we depict in Fig. 9 the graph of force F vs. y. These curves are related to energy dissipation of the
system. These do not have the same structure as those in the papers and the discrepancy is under investigation.
4.3. Example 3: short initial force
The third example describes the model response when there is a short, impulsive applied force F, and, friction and temperature are taken into account. Initially, the system is displaced but there is no initial velocity. This provides insight into the
reaction of the system to a force of short duration.

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R. Zalewski et al. / Applied Mathematical Modelling 38 (2014) 23662376

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

3.0

- 0.02

- 0.04

- 0.06

- 0.08

- 0.10

Fig. 8. Ex. 2. yt; d1 1; e 0:001, and x 101.

-4

-2

-1

-2

-3

-4

-5

Fig. 9. Ex. 2. The force vs. displacement.

0.0014

0.04

0.0012

0.03
0.02

0.0010

0.01

0.0008
0.0006
0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

1.2

1.4

- 0.01

0.0004

- 0.02

0.0002

- 0.03
0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

1.2

1.4

Fig. 10. Ex. 3. yt-left, ht-right; d1 4; e 0:0001, and I 0:2.

The initial conditions were y0 0:04; v 0 0; the viscosity coefcients were d1 4; d2 1; d3 0:5, and the friction
bound T 0 I; h 0:2. We used e 0:0001, and as noted above the frequency of oscillations was x0 223:6 rad=s and
y 0:008. The external (impulsive) force was:

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R. Zalewski et al. / Applied Mathematical Modelling 38 (2014) 23662376

0.1

0.1

10

15

20

0.5

- 0.1

- 0.1

- 0.2

- 0.2

- 0.3

- 0.3

Fig. 11. Ex. 4: yt; d1 1;


Ft

5 if 0 6 t 6 0:1;
0 otherwise:

1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

3.0

e 0:0005; y0 0 20 and I 0 (left) and I in (4.3)(right).

4:2

The displacement yt and the temperature are depicted in Fig. 10. We note that the equilibrium temperature h is obtained from (3.4) when all the time derivatives vanish, thus, h IR2 =h. The oscillations decay over the period 0 6 t 6 1:0
in the displacement and the settling of the temperature to the equilibrium temperature are evident. The raise of the temperature is very small since we used the value h 5000 for the heat exchange coefcient. In this case
h 0:2  4:52 =5000 0:00081, as can be seen on the right-hand side in Fig. 10. We used h 5000 since for the value
h 1:7, the temperature prole was very similar but the rise was very slow (cp 2000) and thestatic state was
h 2:94 C 0 (above hamb ).
We conclude that in this case one is justied in neglecting the temperature. However, for smaller h it seems that the temperature plays a role that may need to be taken into account, especially if the viscosity mD is more sensitive to temperature.
4.4. Example 4: initial impulse
To simulate the initial impact of an aircraft wheel with the ground upon landing, and the possible use of an MR-damper to
control the impact, we study an initial impact problem. We assume no force, and neither friction (T 0 0) nor temperature
effects. Initially, y0 0 and y0 0 20 m=s. The viscosity function (4.1) had the constants d1 1; d2 1; d3 0, and the
current was also a pulse given by,

8
2t
>
>
>
<
1
It
>
4  2t
>
>
:
0

for 0 6 t 6 0:5;
for 0:5 6 t 6 1:5;
for 1:5 6 t 6 2;

4:3

for 2 6 t:

The displacement in the two cases when I 0 and I is given in (4.3) are depicted in Fig. 11, and the phase plane trajectory
was found to be very similar to Fig. 8, and is not depicted.
The comparison between the case with no current (Fig. 11(left)) and the case with the current given in (4.3)
(Fig. 11(right)) shows clearly that the current in the system can be used to control the vibrations caused by a severe initial
impact, when y0 0 20. Without the current, the vibrations are still noticeable at t 10 s, while with the current the
system reaches its static position at about t 1:8 s. Thus, the system is responding well to impact and dampens the initial
oscillations quite rapidly. This opens the way to study control strategies for this MR damper.
5. Conclusions
This work studied a lumped mass model for the dynamics of a hydraulic damper, lled with an MR uid, that takes into
account friction and thermal effects. The model is in the form of a coupled nonlinear system of a differential inclusion for the
displacements and a differential equation for the temperature. The inclusion is due to friction and the constraint of the
dampers casing. The constitutive relations that describe the dependence of the viscosity coefcient and the friction bound
on the magnetic eld (via the current) and the temperature were assumed to be rather general.
A numerical scheme for the problem was developed in Section 3 in which the friction multivalued graph was replaced
with a piecewise linear approximation, and so was the constraint on the pistons motion. Typically, the later introduced a
characteristic oscillations frequency. The numerical simulations depicted typical system behavior, including the case of periodic applied force. The numerical algorithm worked well in some regions in the parameter space and poorly in others. This

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R. Zalewski et al. / Applied Mathematical Modelling 38 (2014) 23662376

calls for an in depth investigation of the numerical method and its dependence on the regularization parameter. Moreover,
we plan to study the stability of the numerical scheme.
The result depicted in Section 3 provide insight into the system dynamics. Moreover, the last example clearly indicates
the control capability of the model, and indeed, the initial impact was quickly dampened.
The next stages of this research will deal with the associated optimal control problem. Indeed, the purpose is to investigate control strategies, by controlling the uid viscosity, so as to optimize the system response.
We will also investigate more general settings that include spatial dependence. A one-dimensional (in space) model for
the process will be developed, analyzed, and simulated. In part, such a model is motivated by experimental results that indicate that the temperature may be nonuniform.
Moreover, experiments are planned so that in conjunction with the numerical algorithm developed in this work, will be
used for the parameter identication of the system. We plan to nd out the functional dependence of the viscosity coefcient
and the friction bound on the applied current and temperature, which is an important issue in the model.
In view of the growing attention to semi- and fully-active control of such devices, we expect this topic of research to continue growing rapidly.
Acknowledgment
The authors would like to thank the two reviewers for their comments that helped to improve the article.
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