On the Application of Bouc-Wen Hysteresis Approach for Modeling of MR Actuators

Magnetorheological (MR) actuators are semi-active devices that reveal a complex hysteretic behaviour. The hysteresis of MR actuators has its origin in the compressibility and inertia of the fluid itself and the magnetisation characteristics of component materials constituting the electromagnetic control circuit of these devices. So far less attention has been devoted to studying the magnetic hysteresis. Therefore, in this paper the authors propose a parametric model of the electromagnetic control circuit of the MR actuator incl. the Bouc-Wen type hysteretic operator. The model captures the hysteresis behaviour of the electromagnetic control circuit only. In the absence of hysteresis it reduces to that of a resistor in series with a nonlinear inductor. The authors show the application of this model when subjected to low-frequency sinusoidal waveforms of voltage. The data show that the model can be an effective tool in capturing the magnetic hysteretic behaviour of MR actuators.