Engineering Structures 69 (2014) 194205

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Engineering Structures
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/engstruct

Multiphysics behavior of a magneto-rheological damper and

experimental validation
Alan Sternberg a,, Ren Zemp a, Juan Carlos de la Llera b
a
b

Ponticia Universidad Catlica de Chile, Vicua Mackenna 4860, Santiago, Chile

Ponticia Universidad Catlica de Chile, National Research Center for Integrated Natural Disaster Management, CONICYT/FONDAP/15110017, Vicua Mackenna 4860, Santiago, Chile

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 19 April 2011
Revised 11 February 2014
Accepted 17 March 2014

Keywords:
Magneto-rheological damper
Numerical model
Magneto-rheological uid
Energy dissipation devices
Semi-active dampers
Seismic response
High-rise buildings

a b s t r a c t
This investigation deals with the design, manufacturing, and testing of a large-capacity MR damper
prototype. The MR damper uses external coils that magnetize the MR-uid as it moves out of the main
cylinder through an external cylindrical gap. In its design, multi-physics numerical simulations are used
to better understand its forcevelocity constitutive behavior, and its eventual use in conjunction with
tuned mass dampers for vibration reduction of high-rise buildings. Multi-physics nite element models
are used to investigate the coupled magnetic and uid-dynamic behavior of these dampers and thus
facilitate the proof-of-concept testing of several new designs. In these models, the magnetic eld and
the dynamic behavior of the uid are represented through the well-known Maxwell and NavierStokes
equations. Both elds are coupled through the viscosity of the magneto-rheological uid used, which in
turn depends on the magnetic eld strength. Some parameters of the numerical model are adjusted using
cyclic and hybrid testing results on a 15 ton MR damper with internal coils. Numerical and experimental
results for the 15 ton MR damper showed very good agreement, which supports the use of the proposed
cascade magnetic-uid model. The construction of the 97 ton MR damper involved several technical
challenges, such as the use of a bimetallic cylinder for the external coils to conne the magnetic eld
within a predened magnetic circuit. As it should be expected, test results of the manufactured MR
damper show that the damping force increases with the applied current intensity. However, a larger
discrepancy between the predicted and measured force in the large damper is observed, which is studied
and discussed further herein.
2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
In recent years large scale magneto-rheological dampers have
reached more attention in the area of structural response control
[18]. An example of such an MR damper is a large scale bypass type
MR damper with 400 kN force capacity and 47.5 cm stroke [19],
or a large scale annular orice type MR damper with a force capacity of 300 kN and a stroke of 28 cm [20]. MR dampers presented in
the literature have been designed using relatively simple analytical
expressions [1,16,17]. Detailed design and testing aspects have also
been thoroughly described in [1], as well as a semi-active seismic
clipped optimal control algorithm based on a linear square regulator [15]. Different phenomenological models can be found in the
literature, e.g. [5], where a modied BoucWen model has been

Corresponding author. Address: Carlos Silva 1226, #12, Providencia, Santiago,

Chile. Tel.: +56 9 9237 4286.
E-mail addresses: alannip@gmail.com (A. Sternberg), renezemp@bluewin.ch
(R. Zemp), jcllera@ing.puc.cl (J.C. de la Llera).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.engstruct.2014.03.016
0141-0296/ 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

successfully proposed, and other non-parametric and neural network models have also been studied [6]. A good example of the
latter are the ANFIS models used to represent the forcevelocity
and displacement device behavior of MR dampers [13]. However,
all these are black-box models which present parameters that need
to be estimated experimentally. Therefore, these models are not
capable of capturing relevant design and practical topics such as
the connement of the magnetic ux within the damper coil,
among other things.
A mathematical model was presented elsewhere [1] to represent the device forcedisplacement and forcevelocity behavior
of an MR damper that includes variability on the damper geometry,
viscosity of the uid without magnetization, and level of shear
stress of the magnetized MR uid. In Ref. [8] mathematical expressions are provided, which consider the friction force effects
between the MR uid and the walls of the device, which also modify the behavior of the damper. Another important reference to this
work is a mathematical model of a double-tube MR damper using
the well-known annular ow solution and uid compressibility [9].

A. Sternberg et al. / Engineering Structures 69 (2014) 194205

Although all this work has been particularly useful in designing MR

dampers, their application to understand certain aspects of their
behavior is not straight forward. Examples relevant to our work
such as the rise in temperature due to energy dissipation and the
consequent rise in internal pressure, or the magnetic ux within
the damper, cannot be analyzed by phenomenological or ANFIS
models. However, they need to be carefully considered during
the design phase of an optimal damper.
Consequently, multi-physical modeling of interacting elds has
become relevant in designing MR dampers. With this motivation in
mind, this paper deals with the design, manufacturing and testing
of a large-capacity MR damper using a FE numerical model describing the magnetic behavior and dynamics of the magneto-rheological (MR) uid to optimize the design of the damper. Ref. [7]
presents a complete system of constitutive equations for an isotropic MR uid within the framework of the electro-dynamical and
thermo-mechanical theories for non-Newtonian incompressible
MR uids. Results of the numerically solved equations are not given in this reference. However, Refs. [4,14] analyze the magnetic
circuit of an MR damper for a 2D-axisymmetric model using Ansys,
and use these results, together with analytical results of a ow of
an MR uid through a parallel duct, to estimate the force of the
damper.
Multi-physics nite-element numerical models (MPFEM) are
also becoming increasingly sophisticated in their capacities to
model complex interacting elds such as magnetism, uid dynamics, stressstrain, and heat transfer. The state-of-the-art in FEM
modeling enables us to study the cyclic behavior of an MR damper
under constant current and sinusoidal excitations, thus helping in
understanding the general trends of design of an optimal MR damper prior to considerable iterative experimental work.
Consequently, the specic goals of this research are to design,
manufacture and test an optimized large-capacity MR damper with
external coils. The steps to achieve these goals are: (i) to numerically predict the device forcedisplacement and forcevelocity
constitutive behavior of the device using state-of-the art MPFEM
software; (ii) to perform a parametric study of the damper design
parameters with different geometries and boundary conditions;
(iii) to use these MPFEM tools to manufacture an optimized
large-scale MR damper; and (iv) to validate and calibrate the damper design procedure with experimental results on the real scale
damper. First, the governing mathematical formulation is presented. Two models were considered in cascade, a magnetic model,
responsible for computing the magnetic eld produced in the damper due to the current running through the coils, and a uiddynamics model, responsible of accounting for the uid yield stress
caused by the magnetic eld computed from the MPFEM magnetic
model. The latter leads to the estimation needed for the damper
force. Second, a model validation is performed using experimental
results of a 15 [ton] MR damper presented elsewhere [2,3]. Third, a
new real-scale MR damper with external magnetic coils and a
nominal capacity of 97 [ton] was designed and optimized by a parametric study using the MPFEM results. Finally, a brief summary of
experimental results and model calibration is presented.

experimental time. Most of the material presented in this section

is well known and may be skipped by the informed reader. It is included with the single purpose of making the article self-contained
and exposing the physical and mathematical models that will be
used herein.
For high shear rates, an MR uid can be well represented by the
Bingham shear stress-shear strain rate constitutive model [6];
models for lower shear rates usually depend on parameters that
need to be calibrated with experimental results. The Bingham
mathematical representation can be written in terms of the
dynamic viscosity as:

gc_ ; H

so H
g1 ; s > so H
c_

where H corresponds to the magnetic eld strength (or strength) in

_
the uid domain; g(gamma,
H) is the dynamic viscosity of the uid,
so(H) represents the uid yield stress dependent on the magnetic
_
eld strength; gamma
is the shear strain rate of the uid; g1 corresponds to the inherent dynamic viscosity of the uid in absence of a
magnetic eld; and s represents the shear stress of the uid. Please
note that for the steel and MR uid, there is a non-linear functional
dependence between s, the magnetic ux density B and H as it will
be shown later. A computational adaption of this model is required
to implement it in CFD software [e.g., Ansys CFX]. According to the
model proposed by Beverly-Tanner (B&T) [10], and taking Eq. (1) as
a basis, the uid may be modeled as an equivalent bilinear Newtonian uid with a eld-dependent dynamic viscosity, i.e.

8 so H
< c_ g1;
: ag1;

c_ P c_ o
c_ < c_ o

where a is a non-dimensional impedance parameter in the preyield region of the uid, and c_ o corresponds to the critical shear
strain rate given by c_ o so H=a  1g1 . This alternative is compared schematically with the Bingham model in Fig. 1. The higher
the value of a, the better the consistency between the two models.
The MR uid used in this research is the Lord MRF-132 DG and
has the nominal properties shown in Table 1. The magnetic
properties of the uid are given by the manufacturer and they
are characterized by a magnetization (BH) curve, and a yield
stressmagnetic eld strength relationship [11]. A comparison between these non-linear BH curves for the MR uid and steel SAE
1045 [12] used to manufacture the damper is plotted in a logarithmic axis in Fig. 2(a). It is apparent that magnetization of steel is larger, faster, and occurs for smaller values of H, reaching a saturated
state for lower H than the uid. Furthermore, the relationship between the yield stress in the uid and H is shown in Fig. 2(b),
where the yield stress gets essentially saturated at a value of

2. Problem formulation
In this research an MR damper with a cylindrical external orice
and external coils is designed, manufactured, and tested. The
design of an MR damper is an iterative process and different topics
such as magnetic ux connement, dynamic range optimization
for high capacity, and damper force rise time reduction have to
be considered to achieve an optimized design. MPFEM are used
in this research as an alternative to simplied design models in order to optimize the design of the damper, thus saving costs and

195

Fig. 1. Comparison between the Bingham and BeverlyTanner model.

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A. Sternberg et al. / Engineering Structures 69 (2014) 194205

Table 1
Properties of Lord MRF 132DG uid.
Properties

MRF 132DG Fluid

Fluid density
Dynamic viscosity @ 40 C,
Solid content by weight
Operating temperature
Field dependent yield stress

3 [gr/cm3]
0.092 0.015 [Pa s]
80.98%
40 to +130 [C]
Fig. 2(b)

48.32 [kPa] as H reaches 300 [kA/m]. This result suggests an upper

limit for the current intensity.
The conguration of the nominal 97 [ton] MR damper designed,
manufactured and tested in this research is shown schematically in
Fig. 3, and is formed by: (1) a piston; (2) an internal steel cylinder;
(3) a bi-metallic external cylinder with a radial gap h relative to the
internal cylinder; (4) four coils wound around the external cylinder; (5) a steel casing covering the coils; (6) two steel head plates;
and (7) the magneto-rheological uid in the chambers of the damper and empty spaces. For the geometry of the MR damper considered (Fig. 3), the uid passes from one chamber to the other
through the thin external gap passage. While the uid moves along
the gap pushed by the displacement of the piston, it crosses the
magnetic ux generated by the external coils wound around the
external steel cylinder. The magnetic eld is controlled externally
by the current intensity. Please note also that the shear stressshear strain velocity constitutive relationship of the uid is a function of the magnetic eld strength H. Moreover, since there is no
gap between the piston and the internal surface of the cylinder,
the only possible way for the uid to move between chambers is
through the cylinder orices that are connected to the external
gap passage. All steel elements were made of SAE 1045 steel.
Since the coils are never in direct contact with the uid, a diamagnetic material is used to induce the magnetic ux to cross
the MR uid at several locations as indicated in Fig. 3. Some of
the advantages of this conguration are that the coils may be inspected and changed without disassembling the entire damper,
and that the resulting length of the piston is smaller, thus allowing
for a larger stroke. Nevertheless, other congurations for the MR
damper were also simulated to better understand the advantages
of one or the other. MR dampers with two, three, and ve external
coils, and a damper with internal coils around the piston were also
considered before coming up with the proposed damper. Moreover, using as a benchmark the MR damper with four coils, several
changes to geometric design parameters as gap size, spacing between coils, piston radius, and cylinder length were also investigated numerically.

Fig. 3. Schematic geometry of the MR damper proposed.

Because of the axial symmetry of the problem, and the internal

geometry of the cylinder, which consists of 12 equally spaced orices in each chamber (Fig. 3), it is possible to reduce the CFX model
to 1/12th of its original size. This enables a more accurate representation of the singularities and complexities of the behavior of
the uid. The abrupt transition between the elastic (large bulk
modulus) and plastic behavior of the uid leads to numerical noise.
For this reason integration requires a very small time-step,
h = 1  106 [s] [4]; larger time-steps would lead to unacceptable
noise in the output. This reduction in size due to symmetry of
the problem was not done for the Magnetostatic model since it does
not reduce the computational cost signicantly.
Before proceeding with the formulation and numerical implementation of the model, it seems relevant to summarize the different eld equations that govern its physical behavior (Table 2). The
electromagnetic equations are represented by the well- known
Maxwell equations, while NavierStokes equations are used to
model the dynamic behavior of the uid. It is assumed that the
interaction between the different elds is given only by the dependence of the dynamic viscosity g on the magnetic ux density B
vector.
The numerical integration strategy proposed herein for the coupled problem considers rst to solve the set of eld equations of
the magnetic eld, and apply these results into the uid problem,
thus uncoupling the set of equations. The main reason behind this
assumption is that the magnetic eld is invariant in time, which is
true when constant current is applied to the coil. All model calibrations will be performed using experimental tests that are performed at constant values of the current intensity. Therefore, the

Fig. 2. Magnetic properties: (a) Magnetization curves for SAE 1045 steel and Lord MRF-132DG uid; and (b) MRF-132DG yield stress [kPa] versus magnetic eld strength [kA/
m].

A. Sternberg et al. / Engineering Structures 69 (2014) 194205

197

Table 2
Field equations.

uid dynamics model takes the output of the magnetostatic model

as an input for obtaining the dynamic viscosity according to the B
T model [10]. A 3D FEM coupled model capable of making the uid
dynamics and magnetic eld models interact during the same time
step would be necessary to simulate the damper behavior subjected to varying current intensity conditions on a building, a task
that goes beyond the scope of this research.
3. Magnetostatic model
A schematic view of the 3D magnetostatic model (MSM) geometry used for the MR damper is presented in Fig. 4(a). The FEM
mesh of the model and its boundary conditions are presented in

Fig. 4(b) and (c), respectively. The mesh consists of 801,590 elements with a total of 1,590,910 nodes. The MSM model includes
an external surrounding air chamber that has been intentionally
hidden in the gure. Finite elements are solid elements, specically
developed to simulate 3D magnetic elds [21]. Boundary conditions are given by zero voltage applied at the external surfaces of
the air chamber, and by the electric current intensity that runs inside each coil in opposite directions, as indicated in Fig. 4(c). The
arrows in Fig. 4(c) represent the direction of the current ow on
each coil. Each coil has 250 turns of AWG 16 copper wire and the
electric current varies at the beginning of a simulation from zero
to a steady state current of 3 [A], in ten equal intervals of 0.3 [A]
and h = 0.01 [s].

Fig. 4. Magnetostatic model and boundary conditions: (a) Geometry, (b) FEM mesh, and (c) direction of electric currents in each coil.

Fig. 5. Target magnetic ux and coils numbering.

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A. Sternberg et al. / Engineering Structures 69 (2014) 194205

Fig. 6. Magnetic ux density around the third coil. (a) Radial ux on the external cylinder. (b) Axial ux on steel casing and internal cylinder.

Fig. 7. Magnetic eld strength in the uid gap.

Conceptually, the direction of the magnetic ux expected in the

cylinder is shown schematically in Fig. 5 for four coils. The ux
travels in paths that are in opposite directions, but interact constructively when crossing the gap of the uid. Diamagnetic elements are used to conduct the magnetic ux through the uid
gap and prevent that it leaks along other steel components.
In Fig. 6 the magnetic ux on the steel components around the
third coil subjected to a current intensity of 3 [A] is presented as a
result of the model. As a reference, the total magnetic ux on the
steel casing is 1.67  102 [Wb]. It is apparent from the path of
the ux in Fig. 6 that it rotates as shown in Fig. 5.
On the other hand, shown in Fig. 7 is the resulting magnetic
eld strength H [kA/m] in the uid, which results from the

magnetic ux that crosses both cylinders. The zones located between coils (Fig. 5) concentrate the larger H values because the
section where the magnetic ux crosses the uid is smaller. In
some places between coils, magnetic eld strength is above
300 kA/m], reaching saturation according to Fig. 2(b), which is
the target for the design of the damper. Symmetry of the results
is essentially explained by the axial symmetry of the problem. As
explained before, the results in the uid gap are taken and used
as an input for the dynamic model of the uid, taking into account
the direct relationship between H and the yield stress of the uid
already shown in Fig. 2(b).
Each one of the 4 coils has a measured resistance of 4 [X].
Therefore the voltage across one coil with a current intensity of 3
[A] is 12 [V], and the power consumption of a single coil is 36
[W]. Moreover, the total power consumption of the 4 coils is 144
[W]. In the damper test, the 4 coils are connected in parallel, so
the equivalent resistance of the 4 coils is 1 [X] and the total current
is 4  3 [A] = 12 [A]. Based on the model, L/R = 0.5 [s] (R = 4.19 [X],
L = 2.11 [Henry]) and V/L = di/dt = 6.16 [A/s]. The values provided
for L are nominal since the inductance was not measured
experimentally.

4. Fluid dynamics model

The domain considered in the CFX nite element model is that
of the uid inside the MR damper. As shown earlier, the damper
has a rotational periodicity, and only 1/12th of the entire domain

Fig. 8. Fluid domain: (a) Full damper geometry, (b) reduced geometry due to axial symmetry (used model), and (c) FEM mesh of the CFX model.

Fig. 9. Imposed boundary conditions for the ow: (a) Inlet velocity and opening pressure proles, and (b) uid-to-uid interface.

A. Sternberg et al. / Engineering Structures 69 (2014) 194205

needs to be included in the model; such is the case since the damper has 12 orices in each side to allow the uid to get into the gap
(Fig. 8(a)). The full and the reduced domains can be compared in
Fig. 8(a) and (b), respectively. They are composed by a single uid
domain, including both chambers at either side of the piston, the
gap between the internal and external cylinder, and the 2  12
holes in the internal cylinder that connect the external gap passage
to the chambers. The number of orices in the internal cylinder
was selected by viscous force simulations of the MR damper, varying the number of orices while optimizing the viscous force. The
model was meshed using the ICEM CFD application, and consists of
hexahedral solid elements; the total number of elements is
520,456 and the total number of nodes is 553,434. The gap is
meshed separated from the rest of the domain, since it needs several layers of regular elements in order to obtain an accurate velocity prole for the uid (Fig. 8(c)).
The boundary conditions applied to the CFX model are schematically shown in Fig. 9, and correspond to: (i) no-slipping of the uid
at the cylinders and piston walls; (ii) an inlet at the initial end and
an opening at the nal end of the domain with a predened uid
velocity prole and relative pressure, respectively (Fig. 9 (a)); (iii)
rotational periodicity at the uiduid interface for the lateral surfaces of the domain (Fig. 9(b)); and (iv) the yield-stress eld obtained from the magneto-static model that controls the uid
viscosity.
An imposed ow at the ends of the model has been nally selected given its simplicity and the negligible differences relative
to a more sophisticated model with a moving mesh. Consequently,
at the inlet the specied velocity prole in the X-direction is
vow,x = v0 sin(xt), where v0 corresponds to the peak velocity, x is
the circular frequency [rad/s], and t is time. Laminar ow is considered in the model, and a transient analysis is performed with a
peak velocity of vmax = 0.17 [m/s], a frequency x = 10 [rad/s], and
a time-step h = 5  104 [s]. The selection of the time-step is the result of a large number of trials and errors. This process showed that
the time step required to ensure convergence is about h = 1  106
[s]. However, computational costs associated with this time step
are excessive, and hence, an integration time step h = 5  104 [s]
was selected as a reasonable compromise to obtain a better
trade-off between accuracy and computational costs especially
for parametric analyses. Results are ltered in order to reduce
eventual noise due to coarseness of the time interval. To control
the accuracy of the simulation, RMS values are calculated for the
three momentum conservation equations and continuity equation.
RMS values of the numerical equilibrium errors, or residuals, at
each time-step of the integration of the governing equations are

199

an overall measure of how well the numerical solution has converged. For adequate accuracy, the converged solution requires a
maximum residual level of 1.0e4. These RMS residuals of the simulation are usually an order of magnitude lower than this tolerance. In case that the RMS values do not achieve this limit,
simulation continues to the next time-step after 10 iterations.
Resulting damper force is computed by integrating the total
pressure applied to the two faces of the damper piston. Thus, the
device forcevelocity (fv) and forcedisplacement (fd) behavior
can be obtained as shown in Fig. 10(a) and (b), respectively. Please
note that the compressibility of the uid was not included in the
model. By using this model and assumptions, the maximum damper force obtained for the given parameter values was about 97.1
[ton]. The numerical noise in the gures is produced by the time
step selected, which despite being small (h = 5  104 [s]), is coarser
than the one required to assure perfect convergence of the CFX
simulation. The model data was ltered by a smoothing ve-point
moving average (MA) scheme. Even with this MA scheme, the
numerical noise could not be eliminated completely, although differences in the maximum force value are negligible relative to the
output given by the ideal time-step h = 1  106 [s].

5. Model validation
The model developed was rst validated using as a benchmark
the experimental results of an existent MR damper [2,3]. The complete geometry of this proof-of-case damper can be seen in
Fig. 11(a) and consists of: (1) a piston; (2) a cylinder; (3) two coils
wound around the piston; (4) two steel head plates; and (5) the MR
uid. The design considers a 1.5 [mm] gap between the piston and
the cylinder, and a measured capacity of 15 [ton]. The procedure is
the same as explained in previous sections, but for this model a
reduction of the uid domain was not necessary, since the computational cost of this problem was manageable. The mesh of the
magneto-static model consisted of 61,503 elements and 94,289
nodes, while the mesh of the CFX model has 272,988 elements
and 77,485 nodes (Fig. 11(b) and (c)). A picture of the damper is
shown in Fig. 11(d); further details of this solution may be found
elsewhere [2,3].
The rst set of experiments consisted of harmonic motions applied to the piston at different constant current intensities i = 0, 0.5,
1, 1.5, 2 and 2.5 [A]. Testing included different displacement amplitudes and cycling frequencies, and the tests used to validate the
FEM model corresponds to a maximum displacement of the
damper of 5 [cm], a period of the cycles of 2.7 [s], and a current

Fig. 10. Capacity of the MR damper estimated numerically using the CFX model: (a) device forcevelocity, and (b) device forcedisplacement.

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Fig. 11. MR damper used in the validation of the numerical model: (a) damper geometry; (b) magneto-static mesh; (c) CFX FEM model mesh; and (d) picture of the 15 [ton]
MR damper.

Fig. 12. Measured and predicted fv behavior of the 15 [ton] MR damper.

intensity of 2 [A], which correspond to typical building design values. The force measured with these parameters was 13.8 [ton],

while the maximum force of the damper obtained numerically is

14.8 [ton] at 2.5 [A].
Shown in Fig. 12 is a comparison between the device force
velocity behavior fv obtained numerically and the experimental
result. Maximum force predicted is 0.32% greater than the one
obtained by experimental testing. As it apparent from the gure,
the numerical model is not able to capture the hysteresis behavior
observed in the experimental fv relationship due to the assumption in the model of incompressibility of the uid. Such behavior
has been incorporated recently in the damper model using a spring
in series to represent this compressibility effect. As a matter of providing some context, this MR damper was installed on a single
tuned-mass (TM) of 168 [ton] implemented in 2008 at the roof
of a 21-story building in Santiago, Chile. The TM has a natural period of 2.73 [s] and was tuned to the rst mode of the building. The
effective viscous damping ratio of the TMD in the passive state of
the MR damper was measured as n = 11.8%. This value was evaluated by performing free vibration pull-back tests on the TMD installed in the building. The amplitude of the pull-back test was
relatively small (10 [cm]) and therefore friction forces of the damper could not be eliminated, and the measured damping ratio is
higher than it would be for larger amplitudes. Moreover, a physical

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201

Fig. 13. Results from parametric analyses: (a) device controllable force Fs [ton] versus spacing between coils b [mm]; (b) device controllable force versus electric current
intensity for b = 50 [mm]; (c) device forcevelocity curves for different values of peak velocity, v0; and (d) dynamic range versus gap size for v0 = 25 [cm/s].

controller was developed and successfully validated in the real

building during the testing phase of the semi-actively control the
tuned mass [2,3].

6. Parametric analyses
One of the main advantages of developing a numerical model of
the MR damper is to try out many analyses with different damper
parameters before manufacturing. Parametric analyses were performed on the model of the 97 [ton] MR damper by varying the following independent design parameters: (i) axial spacing between
coils b; (ii) current intensity i; (iii) maximum piston velocity v0;
and (iv) gap size h. By varying axial spacing of the coils, an optimal
distribution of the magnetic eld strength (H) can be obtained, i.e.,
an optimum volume of saturated uid. Current intensity helps us
understand the importance of the power source used, while velocity conditions are related to different ground motion conditions
and available damper hardware. Moreover, since the gap size has
a strong inuence on the dynamic range of the damper, this effect
needs to be evaluated in the damper response. For this case, Yangs
formula [1] for the MR damper was used since a change in the gap
size of the model would imply a change in the FEM mesh, which
would imply a signicant increase in computational costs.
Although we found that this formula may differ by about 30% relative to CFX results in external coil congurations, it shows the
same trends in the results as obtained from changes in the gap size
of the model, and hence, it can be used to predict the optimum gap
size to maximize the dynamic range of the MR damper.

The variation of the axial spacing between coils, b, was generated by keeping all other independent geometric parameters constant, except the length of the outer steel casing that needs to be
elongated in order to cover the coils and generate the magnetic
ux circuit. The values of b that have been considered range from
40 to 200 [mm] (Fig. 13(a)). The second analysis keeps b = 50 [mm],
and changes the current intensity in the coils from 0 to 3 [A]
(Fig. 13(b)). The damper force has been obtained for every current
intensity value using the CFX model. Third, the considered variation in the maximum velocity ranges from 17 to 46 [cm/s] in intervals of 3 [cm/s], corresponding to the expected range of velocities
in the building where the damper is to be installed. Finally, a sensitivity analysis of the gap size h was done with values ranging in
the interval between 0.9 and 5.5 [mm] and a maximum velocity of
25 [cm/s]. The gap size has an inuence mainly in the viscous force,
and controls the dynamic range D. The viscous component of the
damper force, Fg was also obtained using the CFX model by representing the uid properties without the magnetic eld (Table 1).
The controllable force of the damper is computed by subtracting
Fg from the total damper force. The dynamic range D (Fig. 13(d))
is dened as the ratio of the controllable force Fs and the passive
viscous and frictional damper force, Fg + Ff [1]. The friction force
Ff is constant and can be measured by testing the device; during
the design phase, this friction force needs to be blindly estimated.
It is apparent from part (a) of Fig. 13 that the value of the
controllable force increases as the spacing b between coils also increases. This is so because the uid becomes magnetically saturated in every model analyzed and, hence, the magnetic ux
density is kept constant for different values of b. Therefore, the

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Fig. 14. Schematic geometry of the additional models used to compare with the proposed model: (a) three coils; (b) ve coils; (c) diamagnetic rings on the external cylinder
only; and (d) diamagnetic rings in the external and internal cylinder.

current level increases with the parameter b as the number of wire

turns is kept constant. However, this increase tends to a constant
value near 220 [ton] when b is larger than 130 [mm], which is
the point where the steel begins to saturate. Despite this value,
b = 50 [mm] was chosen mainly because of the capacity of the
available experimental testing equipment. In addition, since larger
values of b lead to larger magnetic ux, this implies that the rise
time of the current in the coil to switch between the minimum
and maximum damper force becomes larger, implying a slower response of the damper. Part (b) of the Figure shows that the rate of
change of the controllable force Fs decreases as the current intensity increases, tending to saturate after 5 [A], which becomes the
upper possible bound for experimental testing. The inuence of
the maximum damper velocity in the damper force is summarized
in part (c). The maximum force of the MR damper does not increase
much with an increase in the maximum piston velocity, which enable us to provide a rough estimate of the operational velocities at

the design stage. By using the values of the parameters assumed in

the simulation, part (d) shows that the nominally optimal gap size
is about 3.2 [mm], a value larger than the one typically used in
practice. In this case, the maximum dynamic range value obtained
from the results leads to a very low controllable force of 21.1 ton,
which is not desirable. This parametric study was indented only
to understand how forces and dynamic range vary around the selected design point if one of the above mentioned parameters
changes while others are kept constant. These are all independent
design parameters and hence, there are no coupling effects between them. Thus, the process of changing a single parameter value, while keeping the rest constant, is physically and
mathematically correct. Naturally the response of the damper couples the effect of all of these parameters.
The 97 [ton] MR damper proposed in this research has been
numerically tested against other congurations to study possible
improvements in future designs. The alternatives include varying

Fig. 15. Photograph of the 97 [ton] MR damper.

Table 3
Summary of the results of comparative analyses.
Model

Original model

(a) 3-Coils

(b) 5-Coils

(c) 1-Diamagnetic ring

(d) 2-Diamagnetic rings

sav

23.43 [kPa]
97.08 [ton]

17.75 [kPa]
91.98 [ton]
5.25%

34.41 [kPa]
120.37 [ton]
23.99%

26.56 [kPa]
106.52 [ton]
9.72%

27.74 [kPa]
110.92 [ton]
14.26%

Fmax (CFX)
Variation relative to base model

Table 4
Chosen parameters for the design of MRDA-UC.
Design parameter

Dimension

Design parameter

Dimension

Design parameter

Dimension

Stroke
Piston radius
Coils width
No. of holes in internal cylinder
Steel casing thickness

200 [mm]
130 [mm]
60 [mm]
2  12
25 [mm]

Gap size, h
Rod radius
Spacing between coils, b
Internal cylinder holes diameter
Ext. cylinder thickness (steel)

1.5 [mm]
35 [mm]
50 [mm]
20 [mm]
41 [mm]

Cylinder length
No. of coils
Int. cylinder thickness
Head plates thickness
Ext. cylinder thickness (diamagnetic)

640 [mm]
4
30 [mm]
40 [mm]
24 [mm]

A. Sternberg et al. / Engineering Structures 69 (2014) 194205

Table 5
Summary of the experimental tests performed to the real-scale MR damper.
Group of tests

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

Amplitude [mm]
Frequency [Hz]
Current intensities [A]

10
0.48
03

60
0.212
03

100
0.21
03

140
0.19
02.5

the number of external coils, and incorporating diamagnetic rings

at the ends of the cylinders to provide a better efciency of the
magnetic circuit (Fig. 14). Therefore, four new models were analyzed and their fv behaviors obtained to compare results with
the base conguration. Models (a) and (b) belong to a conguration
with three and ve coils respectively, model (c) includes one diamagnetic ring at each end of the external cylinder, and model (d)
has diamagnetic rings at either of the external and internal cylinder ends.
While magnetic ux leaking through the head plates can be
found in congurations (a) and (b), numerical results reveal that
it is negligible in cases (c) and (d), which indicates that the diamagnetic layer on the external cylinder is enough to stop this leakage.
Therefore, all magnetic ux crosses through the uid gap, and
models (c) and (d) result in more efcient models than (a) and
(b), a fact that is reected in their maximum force values shown
in Table 3. It should be noticed that the inclusion of diamagnetic

203

components could be incorporated to any MR damper in order to

increase its capacity with minimum cost.
Shown in Table 3 is the value of sav, dened as the corresponding average yield stress representative of the uid, which acts on
the total active length and is obtained from the FEM output.
Results show that if the number of coils increases within a xed
cylinder length, the magnetic ux becomes more concentrated
and the active length becomes smaller. Therefore, the total force
can be substantially varied by modifying this parameter; for instance, if one more coil is added to the base system, the capacity
may be improved by 24%. On the other hand, the capacity of the
damper may be improved by 10% roughly if the magnetic ux is
efciently directed and leaking is minimized.
7. Design, manufacturing, and testing of the real-scale MR
damper
The selected design properties for the large-scale MR damper
with external coils are summarized in Table 4. The damper has a
nominal capacity of 97 [ton] based on the numerical model developed earlier. This damper had to be modied to meet the requirements of the available experimental setup, which considered a
maximum stroke of 200 [mm] and an axial capacity of 100 [ton]
(see Fig. 15). During the design process aspects like the magnetic

Fig. 16. Measured device fv and fd behavior for different amplitudes, frequencies, and current intensities i = 0, 0.6, 1.3, 2.0, 2.5 and 3.0 [A].

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A. Sternberg et al. / Engineering Structures 69 (2014) 194205

Fig. 17. Results of Test 21: (a) measured pressure of both chambers and temperature measured in one chamber (lower curve); and (b) total and estimated damper force by
measuring the pressure difference between chambers.

ux connement by the bi-metallic external cylinder or the stress

distribution in the different damper parts due to a maximum internal pressure of 500 [bar] were studied by using the numerical multi-physics model. The pressure limit of 500 [bar] was derived from
the expected dynamic pressure and raise due to temperature increase in the uid due to energy dissipation in the damper. Several
pressure tests were run on the bimetallic external cylinder during
the construction process to ensure its integrity when subjected to
this large internal pressure. As intuitively expected, one of the
most challenging aspects in the manufacturing process was to
avoid uid leakage in this bi-metallic conguration of the external
cylinder. The main advantage of an MR damper with an external
coil relative to an MR damper with internal coils is that in the former the coils are not in contact with the MR uid. Preventing a
possible leakage of MR uid through the perforation required for
the internal coils to reach the voltage source is a tricky problem.
As it will be seen later, the tests described validate the concept
of the external coils for this large scale MR damper.
A set of 23 harmonic tests were performed on the real-scale MR
damper with different amplitudes, frequencies, and current intensities (Table 5). Each test was run at a constant current intensity
value i = 0, 0.6, 1.3, 2.0, 2.5 and 3.0 [A] respectively, which is consistent with the assumption presented for the cascade magneticuid model used. The experimental device force velocity fv and
force displacement fd relationships are shown in Fig. 16. Four
groups of tests are plotted, each considering different current
intensity values for the same velocity, or equivalently using the
same combination of amplitude and frequency (Table 5). Please
note that the last group was tested only to 2.5 [A], since the
hydraulic pump of the actuator could not reach a better
performance.
It is apparent from Fig. 16 that as it was expected for an MR
damper, the change in maximum force is not strongly affected by
the change in the maximum velocity. For the (c) group of tests, a
dynamic range of 2.8 was measured; this value is lower than the
expected value in the FEM simulations due mainly to the higher
measured friction and viscous forces, and the lower value of the
controllable force. The viscous force is probably higher than the

one predicted and is attributed to unforeseen inaccuracies in the

manufacturing of the external gap uid passage, and a larger complexity of the ow around the inlet orices, which are not included
in the simulation model. Also, the measured damper force as current intensity is applied is smaller than predicted by simulations
due mainly to two aspects: (i) the impossibility to obtain a perfect
magnetic isolation between both metallic materials of the bimetallic cylinder during the manufacturing processfor instance,
local spots of the material with low permeability in the ferromagnetic area of the cylinder were observed, which reduces the total
magnetic ux area in the uid gap by approximately 15%; and
(ii) by opening the device it was observed that the fabrication
was not perfect and a smaller gap between the bimetallic cylinder
and the steel casing occurred in some places. These two unforeseen
effects were not included in the model, and they reduce the total
magnetic ux that crosses the uid thus reducing the capacity of
the damper. All these details are being corrected, optimized, and
studied further to improve the nal damper design. In any case, results of Fig. 16 prove that scaling MR dampers to large capacities is
feasible, though some practical improvements are still needed in
manufacturing these prototypes.
Finally, shown in Fig. 17(a) is an example of the pressure measured in both chambers, and the uid temperature measured in
one of the chambers during the test specied by an amplitude of
A = 100 [mm], f = 0.21 [Hz], and current intensity i = 2.5 [A] (Test#
21). Temperature in the uid rose 10 [C] during the test, and due
to its corresponding thermal expansion, the average pressure in
the damper rose by 7.3 [bar/C]. This value agrees well with the
numerically estimated value of 8.6 [bar/C]. It can also be seen that
the temperature keeps rising after the last loop, which can be
explained by the heat transfer in the uid from the center of the
cylinder to the head plates, where the PT 100 temperature sensor
is installed. On the other hand, while the pressure rises in one
chamber, it decreases in the other. In Fig. 17(b), the damper force
is obtained by simply multiplying the measured pressure difference p2  p1 by the piston area Ap plus the friction force
F f  signv , where F f was measured as 7.3 [ton], i.e., Fpressure =
(p2  p1)  Ap + Ff  sign(v). This force measurement is compared in

A. Sternberg et al. / Engineering Structures 69 (2014) 194205

the gure with the force measured by the load cell F cell . This is a
clear proof that the applied external force on the damper can be
computed as the resultant of the pressure differences.

8. Conclusions
This paper deals with the design, manufacturing, and experimental testing of a nominal 97 [ton] large-capacity MR damper.
As a design tool a multi-physics FEM model is used for numerical
simulation of the response of the MR damper, which solves the
magneto-static and uid dynamic problems as cascade systems.
It has been shown in this article that the numerical boundary conditions imposed to the problem lead to a well posed numerical
problem. The numerical solution of the magneto-static and uid
problems is coupled through the uid viscosity, which depends
on the magnetic eld strength.
It is concluded from the comparison between numerical and
experimental results for a 15 [ton] damper that the capacity of
an MR damper with coils wound around the piston can be correctly
predicted by the use of a FEM numerical model like the one presented herein. The model was validated by using dynamic tests
on a 15 [ton] MR damper that was later implemented in a 21-story
building in Santiago, Chile. It is also true that the numerical simulation proposed that uses the Bingham model is not capable of representing the real hysteretic behavior observed in the MR damper
due to assumption of incompressibility of the uid. Even with that
assumption, the maximum damper capacity and post-yield capacity differ in less than 0.5%.
The numerical model was basically developed to optimize the
design of a prototype of a real-scale 97 [ton] MR damper with
external coils, which was manufactured and tested. The scaling
of the device from 15 [ton] to 97 [ton] presented several design
and practical construction challenges that have being mostly resolved but still require ne-tuning. A detailed explanation of these
aspects goes beyond the scope of this article and will be presented
in a sequel publication. In general terms, the critical construction
aspects can be traced to the proper connement of the magnetic
eld, and the increase in pressure within the uid. The former
was achieved by the use of a bimetallic cylinder. For the latter,
since pressures inside the damper are signicant and rise as the
temperature in the uid increases, a careful design of the joint
between the two materials for the cylinder was considered. A complete set of pressure tests were performed to prove that this
bi-metallic joint works properly.
Numerical results have shown that the inclusion of diamagnetic
components can actually improve the efciency of an MR damper.
Also, as the number of coils increases in the damper, the capacity
increases if the cylinder length is kept constant. Furthermore, it
is derived from parametric analyses that the spacing between coils
is a critical design parameter due to its inuence in the active
length and the magnetic ux saturation within the uid domain.
These analyses also proved that the uid saturates for the design
of the 97 [ton] MR damper with four coils after a current intensity
of 5 [A]; the dynamic range for the proposed conguration is smaller than the optimally predicted one due to the fact that the target
passive force for the damper was larger, and it required a smaller
dynamic range.
Initial test results on the large scale damper show that the concept of the external coil and other damper design aspects work
well in practice, but that there are still several manufacturing
and model details that need to be improved in order to get a better
agreement between the FEM model simulations and the proof-ofconcept experimental results in this case. Several physical and

205

practical explanations for these discrepancies are possible, but

they need to be studied further before a nal conclusion can be
achieved on how to better correct them.
Finally, it can be stated that MR dampers can be scaled up using
a multi-physical FE model. Such models are a promising tool for
accompanying the design process of an MR damper in order to
optimize the damper geometry and save experimental time and
costs. In future research, a phenomenon like shear thinning of
the uid, temperature effects due to energy dissipation which increase the internal pressure in the cylinder, compressibility of
the MR uid, and other magnetic phenomena may be added into
the model.
Acknowledgments
This research has been supported by the Fondo Nacional de
Ciencia y Tecnologa, Fondecyt, through Grant #1110377, the Fondo de Fomento al Desarrollo Cientco y Tecnolgico, Fondef,
through Grant #D07I1006, and the National Research Center for
Integrated Natural Disaster Management CONICYT/FONDAP/
15110017.
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