Structural design and control of a novel small-MRF damper under 50N soft-landing applications

To achieve less than 50N soft-landing using magneto-rheological fluid (MRF) damper, a novel small-MRF damper has been developed. Firstly, we design a new outer Electromagnetic coil comparing to traditional inner coil structure, which can obtain miniature damper easily and control the magnetic field conveniently. Secondly, we apply silicon steel rather than carbon steel for MRF damper, which can improve performance of response and demagnetization of the damper. The effectiveness of the innovative design is confirmed by experiments in this paper. The range of soft-landing load can be controlled from 18N to 55N by adjusting the coil current from 0A to 0.8A. Additionally, an impact force at the beginning can be eliminated by using a modeled synchronous linear current, which indicates that the small-MRF damper has good soft-landing performance. Furthermore, the novel approach provides developing ideas for the miniaturization of the MRF damper.