A comparison of 200 kN magneto-rheological damper models for use in real-time hybrid simulation pretesting

Abstract

Control devices can be used to dissipate the energy of a civil structure subjected to dynamic loading, such as earthquake, wave and wind excitation, thus reducing structural damage and preventing failure. The magneto-rheological (MR) fluid damper is a promising device for use in civil structures due to its mechanical simplicity, inherent stability, high dynamic range, large temperature operating range, robust performance, and low power requirements. The MR damper is intrinsically nonlinear and rate dependent. Thus a challenging aspect of applying this technology is the development of accurate models to describe the behavior of such dampers for control design and evaluation purposes. In particular, a new type of experimental testing called real-time hybrid simulation (RTHS) combines numerical simulation with laboratory testing of physical components. As with any laboratory testing, safety is of critical importance. For RTHS in particular the feedback and dynamic interaction of physical and numerical components can result in potentially unstable behavior. For safety purposes, it is desired to conduct pretest simulations where the physical specimen is replaced with an appropriate numerical model yet the numerical RTHS component is left unchanged. These pretest simulations require a MR damper model that can exhibit stability and convergence at larger fixed integration time steps, and provide computational efficiency, speed of calculation, and accuracy during pretest verification of the experimental setup. Several models for MR dampers have been proposed, including the hyperbolic tangent, Bouc–Wen, viscous plus Dahl and algebraic models. This paper examines the relative performance of four MR damper models of large-scale 200 kN MR dampers as needed for pretest simulations of RTHS. Experimental tests are conducted on two large-scale MR dampers located at two RTHS test facilities at the Smart Structures Technology Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and the Lehigh University Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation facility. It is shown that each of the MR damper models examined has relative merits and the ultimate selection of the particular model is dependent on the specific RTHS being tested.