A New Hybrid Model for Electrorheological Fluid Shear-Mode Dampers: Separation of Pre- and Post-Yield Parameter Estimation

Electrorheological and magnetorheological fluids have found commercial application in a wide range of damping, force transmission and fluid flow arrangements, but are complex fluids, needing accurate rheological models for application design. In order to further the understanding of the behavior of these fluids under stress, a new lumped parameter (eight-element) model of shear-mode electrorheological fluid dampers has been developed. In this paper, the new model is presented and experimental data on damper force response is compared with model predictions over a range of sinusoidal input displacement amplitudes, input excitation frequencies and electric fields.