Analysis of the optimal design strategy of a magnetorheological smart structure

The exploration of magnetorheological (MR) fluid applications involves many fields. During the phase of theory analysis and experimental investigations, most of the research has been in developing primary products, and the design method is becoming important in MR device design. To establish general design guidelines, not with the usual MR smart structure design method which just complies with the presented yield stress of smart materials, in this paper, an MR smart structure design method is presented according to the whole requirement of smart structure characteristics. In other words, the smart structure design method does not just execute its optimization according to the presented MR fluid features, and it can customize or select the properties of MR fluid obeying the whole system requirements. Besides the usual magnetic circuit design analysis, the MR fluid physical content, such as the volume fraction of particles, was incorporated into the design parameters of the products. At the same time, by utilizing the structural parameters, the response time of MR devices was considered by analyzing the time constant of electromagnetic coils inside the MR devices too. Additionally, the power consumption relevant to transient useful power was analyzed for structure design. Finally, based on the computation of the magnetic field in a finite element (COMSOL multiphysics), all these factors were illustrated in an MR fluid valve based on the results of a magnetic circuit design.