An analytical approach to optimally design of electrorheological fluid damper for vehicle suspension system

This work develops an analytical approach to optimally design electrorheological (ER) dampers, especially for vehicle suspension system. The optimal design considers both stability and ride comfort of vehicle application. After describing the schematic configuration and operating principle of the ER damper, a quasi-static model is derived on the basis of Bingham rheological laws of ER fluid. Based on the quasi-static model, the optimization problem for the ER damper is built. The optimization problem is to find optimal value of significant geometric dimensions of the ER damper, such as the ER duct length, ER duct radius, ER duct gap and the piston shaft radius, that maximize damping force of the ER damper. The two constrained conditions for the optimization problem are: the damping ratio of the damper in the absence of the electric field is small enough for ride comfort and the buckling condition of the piston shaft is satisfied. From the proposed optimal design, the optimal solution of the ER damper constrained in a specific volume is obtained. In order to evaluate performance of the optimized ER damper, simulation result of a quarter-car suspension system installed with the optimized ER damper is presented and compared with that of the non-optimized ER damper suspension system. Finally, the optimal results of the ER damper constrained in different volumes are obtained and presented in order to figure out the effect of constrained volume on the optimal design of ER damper.