Discussions and Closures
a variation for flux density distribution in the air gap. There-
Discussion of “Feasibility Test of Adaptive
Passive Control System Using MR Fluid
Damper with Electromagnetic
Induction Part” by Hyung-Jo Jung,
Dong-Doo Jang, Heon-Jae Lee,
In-Won Lee, and Sang-Won Cho
February 2010, Vol. 136, No. 2, pp. 254–259.
DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9399(2010)136:2(254)
Zhi-hao Wang1
1 namely adaptive passive control for the self-powered MR
Assistant Professor, School of Civil Engineering and Communication,
North China Univ. of Water Resources and Electric Power, Zhengzhou,
China 450011; formerly, Doctoral Student, College of Civil Engineer-
ing, Hunan Univ., Changsha, China. E-mail: wangzhihao916@126.com
The discussers congratulate the authors for their work on the
original paper, which presents a meaningful and comprehensive
study that seeks power source for magnetorheological (MR) damp-
ers based on the energy harvested from structural vibration. Their
study builds on the excellent work that the first author and his
coworkers have been producing for years in this area. It is found
that the developed electromagnetic induction (EMI)-MR damping
system does not need an external power supply, but also has
excellent control performance with self-adaptability. However, to
better understand and validate the original paper’s findings, the
authors may consider further elaboration of the following issues.
1. As stated in the original paper, the passive optimal voltage for
the MR damper is obtained as 4 V on the basis of Fig. 5(b),
which shows the mean values of all the evaluation criteria for
all the earthquakes. However, it seems the proof adopted to
determine the optimal input voltage is not sufficient. Generally,
there is a trade-off problem between displacement mitigation
and acceleration mitigation in one typical structural vibration
control system. When the damping force for a certain structure
is increased, better displacement mitigation is expected; but for
acceleration mitigation, when the damping force exceeds the
threshold value, the control performance will drop again. In
Fig. 5, evaluation criteria J1 and J3, which both relate to
the interstory drift at the first floor, are continuously reduced
with the increasing input voltage to the MR damper, while
for criteria J2 and J4, which both relate to the acceleration
response at the top floor, there is an optimal voltage around
4 V, which corresponds to the threshold damping force of
the MR damper.
2. The authors may wish to check the parameters in Eq. (3),
which is originally from the research of El-hami et al.
(2001) and Palomera-Arias et al. (2008). The damping force
of the EMI part F EMI can be expressed as
ðB · N · LÞ2 dx
F EMI ¼ ð1Þ
ðREMI þ RMR Þ þ jωðLEMI þ LMR Þ dt
where L = effective length of the coil. Although the authors
claim that L is equal to the width of the permanent magnet,
it seems that the corresponding explanation is omitted. Also,
0.6 T mentioned for the adopted permanent magnet should be
the remanence flux density (Br ), which cannot be assumed to
be equal to flux density B in the whole air gap. In fact, there is
JOURNAL OF ENGINEERING MECHANICS © ASCE / AUGUST 2012 / 1057
fore, B in Eq. (1) should be an average value. In addition, the
values of the parameters REMI , RMR , LEMI , and LMR are not
introduced. It is also unclear whether the authors really esti-
mate the damping force F EMI with the calculation of inductive
effect. If the inductive effect is taken into consideration, a min-
or time delay between F EMI and the structural velocity should
be found.
3. The authors have pointed out that the electromagnetic damping
force F EMI cannot be ignored in this research. However, in
some cases, such as the El Centro excitation, the EMI part
has the dominant effect on structural control. Hence, the
damper has almost lost its effect in the controlled structural
system. Furthermore, the authors claim that the peak accelera-
tion in the adaptive passive case is almost the same as that in
the passive optimal case when the structure is subjected to the
Kobe earthquake. Actually, the peak acceleration in the adap-
tive passive case is significantly larger than in the passive
optimal case, which can be clearly seen from Fig. 8(b).
4. In a similar work by the authors and their coworkers (Choi et al.
2007), it is demonstrated that both the induced voltage and
power harvested from the EMI system are proportional to
both the frequency and amplitude of structural vibration.
Hence, the scaled building used in the shaking table test is
helpful to generate a higher voltage, because the natural fre-
quency of the scaled building is higher, which can generate
a bigger relative velocity with the same displacement ampli-
tude. Therefore, one concern about whether the EMI
part developed in this paper still works for a real building with
low natural frequency is induced. In addition, in Fig. 3, a lever
device is used to amplify the relative velocity between the
permanent magnet and the coil in the EMI part, which is
necessary for energy harvesting from low-level vibration in
the civil structures (Wang et al. 2009). However, the amplifi-
cation ratio of the device and detailed configuration are not
described in the paper.
5. It is also surprising that the peak acceleration in the case of
passive control is the same as that in adaptive passive control
for both the Hachinohe and Northridge earthquakes. Therefore,
the authors may wish to check the test data or give some further
explanation and insights.
References
Choi, K. M., Jung, H. J., Lee, H. J., and Cho, S. W. (2007). “Feasibility
study of an MR damper-based smart passive control system employing
an electromagnetic induction device.” Smart Mater. Struct., 16(6),
2323–2329.
El-hami, M., et al. (2001). “Design and fabrication of a new vibration based
electromechanical power generator.” Sens. Actuators A, Phys., 92(1–3),
335–342.
Palomera-Arias, R., Connor, J. J., and Ochsendorf, J. A. (2008). “Feasibil-
ity study of passive electromagnetic damping systems.” J. Struct. Eng.,
134(1), 164–170.
Wang, Z. H., Chen, Z. Q., and Spencer, B. F. (2009). “Self-powered
and sensing control system based on MR damper: Presentation and
application.” Proc. SPIE Conf. on Smart Structures and Mater. and
Nondestructive Evaluation and Health Monitoring, International
Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE), San Diego, 7292, 729740.
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