This article presents a list of suitable techniques and materials leading to the design of an ultra-fast magnetorheological (MR) valve. Two approaches for achieving the short response time are proposed: (a) by means of material, and (b) by means of the shape. Within the shape approach, the revolutionary technique of 3D metal printing using a selective laser melting (SLM) method was tested. The suitability of the materials and techniques is addressed based on the length of the response time, which is determined by the FEM. The simulation results determine the response time of the magnetic flux density on the step signal of the current. Subsequently, the response time is verified by the measurement of the simple magnetorheological valve. The following materials were tested: martensitic stainless steel AISI 420A (X20Cr13), cutting steel 11SMn30, pure iron for SLM, Sintex SMC STX prototyping material, ferrite N87, and Vacoflux 50. A special technique involving grooves was used for preventing eddy currents on materials with a high electrical conductivity. The simulation and experimental results indicate that a response time shorter than 2.5 ms can be achieved using materials such as Sintex SMC prototyping, ferrite N87, and grooved variants of metal pistons.

The transient behaviour of magnetorheological (MR) actuators affects their performance in progressive semiactive control suspension systems. The two sources of the time delay between the control signal and damping force are (a) dynamics of MR damper hardware and (b) the MR fluid dynamics. The significant part of the MR fluid response time is the so-called hydrodynamic response time which is connected with the transient flow. Due to the above, the main aim of this paper is to experimentally determine the hydrodynamic response time of MR fluid and present systematic means for characterizing it via computational fluid dynamics (CFD) or analytical tools. The unique measurement method using an in-house patented slit flow rheometer is presented. The essence of the method relies on determining the pressure drop variation with the time spent by the fluid in the MR gap. The experimental determined hydrodynamic response time of MR fluid ranges from 0.4 to 1 ms for a selected gap size and a range of magnetic field stimuli. The results show that the higher the magnetic field, the lower the hydrodynamic response time is. Both CFD and analytical models exhibit similar trends as the experimental data. Moreover, the impact of temperature and gap size was determined. Here, the higher the gap size and temperature of MR fluid, the longer the response time is.

Many publications show that the ride comfort of a railway vehicle can be significantly improved using a semi-active damping control of the lateral secondary dampers. However, the control efficiency depends on the selection of the control algorithm and the damper dynamic behaviour, i.e., its force rise response time, force drop response time and force dynamic range. This paper examines the influence of these parameters of a magnetorheological (MR) damper on the efficiency of S/A control for several control algorithms. One new algorithm has been designed. Hardware-in-the-loop simulation with a real magnetorheological damper has been used to get close to reality. A key finding of this paper is that the highest efficiency of algorithms is not achieved with a minimal damper response time. Furthermore, the force drop response time has been more important than the force rise response time. The Acceleration Driven Damper Linear (ADD-L) algorithm achieves the highest efficiency. A reduction in vibration of 34% was achieved.

The paper focuses on the coefficient of friction (COF) of a magnetorheological fluid (MRF) in the wide range of working conditions across all the lubrication regimes—boundary, mixed, elastohydrodynamic (EHD), and hydrodynamic (HD) lubrication, specifically focused on the common working area of MR damper. The coefficient of friction was measured for MR fluids from Lord company with concentrations of 22, 32, and 40 vol. % of iron particles at temperatures 40 and 80 °C. The results were compared with a reference fluid, a synthetic liquid hydrocarbon PAO4 used as a carrier fluid of MRF. The results show that at boundary regime and temperature 40 °C all the fluids exhibit similar COF of 0.11–0.13. Differences can be found in the EHD regime, where the MR fluid COF is significantly higher (0.08) in comparison with PAO4 (0.04). The COF of MR fluid in the HD regime rose very steeply in comparison with PAO4. The effect of particle concentration is significant in the HD regime.

The significant problem of magnetorheological (MR) dampers is their poor fail-safe ability. In the case of power supply failure, the damper remains in a low damping state which is dangerous for several technical applications. This can be solved by accommodating a permanent magnet to the magnetic circuit of the damper. Currently, the MR dampers are used in progressive semiactive (S/A) control of suspension systems. The dynamics (force response time) of the damper is an important parameter that affects the performance of S/A control. The main goal of this paper is to introduce the dynamic behavior of MR damper with a permanent magnet. The damper design with the permanent magnet in the magnetic circuit, transient magnetic simulation including magnetic hysteresis and eddy currents, and experiments are presented. The magnetic field response time and MR damper force response time are measured and also determined from magnetic simulation. The permanent magnet significantly influences the MR damper dynamics. The decrease of the damping force from a fail-safe state–medium damping to off-state–low damping is significantly faster (2 ms, −1 A) than the increase to on-state–high damping (12 ms, 1 A). The exact value is depending on the electric current magnitude and piston velocity. The damper achieved fail-safe damping force approximately 1/3 of the maximum damping force. The exact value of the fail-safe force is magnetization history-dependent. The maximum dynamic force range is 8.5 which is comparable with the common design of MR damper.

It is generally accepted that semi-actively (S/A) controlled dampers can significantly improve the behaviour of a road or rail vehicle. In the case of a railway vehicle, it is possible to increase comfort using S/A control of vertical or lateral secondary dampers. On another way, S/A control offers the possibility of solving a contradiction in the damping requirements for different driving modes, in the case of control of bogie yaw dampers. However, this case has not yet been sufficiently investigated. This paper deals with applying magnetorheological dampers with semi-active control in the locomotive bogie to reduce hunting oscillation. The magnetorheological bogie yaw damper design, new algorithms for its control and application on a complex multi-body locomotive model that simulates fast running on a real straight track are shown. An essential part of the paper focuses on the effect of the damping force level and damper force transient response time. The results have shown that using the semi-active control of the yaw dampers makes it possible to reduce vehicle body lateral oscillation by 60% and improve running stability for higher equivalent conicity and subcritical speed. The critical speed can be increased by more than 250 km/h. The efficiency of the proposed semi-active control increases with increasing damping force level and decreasing transient response time. The control is most effective under conditions of low equivalent conicity.