Experimental and numerical studies on a composite MR damper considering magnetic saturation effect

In this paper, a composite magnetorheological (CMR) damper was experimented under different electric currents, displacement amplitudes and frequencies to investigate its nonlinear hysteretic behavior, magnetic saturation property, energy dissipation capability and fatigue resistance performance. The modified Sigmoid model was proposed to describe the behaviors of the CMR damper, and the predictions obtained from the proposed model were validated using the data collected from the experiments, comparisons between predictions by Bingham model, Bouc-Wen model, and the modified Sigmoid model and test results were carried out. It was found that the proposed model can describe the effects of electric current, displacement and frequency on the nonlinear hysteretic behavior and magnetic saturation property of the CMR damper.