This review presents various control strategies for application systems utilizing smart magneto-rheological fluid (MRF) and magneto-rheological elastomers (MRE). It is well known that both MRF and MRE are actively studied and applied to many practical systems such as vehicle dampers. The mandatory requirements for successful applications of MRF and MRE include several factors: advanced material properties, optimal mechanisms, suitable modeling, and appropriate control schemes. Among these requirements, the use of an appropriate control scheme is a crucial factor since it is the final action stage of the application systems to achieve the desired output responses. There are numerous different control strategies which have been applied to many different application systems of MRF and MRE, summarized in this review. In the literature review, advantages and disadvantages of each control scheme are discussed so that potential researchers can develop more effective strategies to achieve higher control performance of many application systems utilizing magneto-rheological materials.

This study presents a new kind of low sedimentation magnetorheological fluid (MRF). Its salient properties are evaluated using a small-sized damper. The proposed MRF is characterized to investigate the effect of plate-like iron particles on rheological properties such as yield stress and flow behavior. Plate-like micron size iron particles play an important role in improving stability against rapid sedimentation as well as in enhancing the value of the yield stress. This study also considers a bidisperse MRF because this can produce a higher yield stress compared with a monodisperse suspension. Since the field-dependent yield stress is the key factor in mechanical applications, the physical properties of the MRF proposed in this work are evaluated and applied to the design of a small-sized damper which can be used for vibration control in washing machines. In order to verify the smaller effect on the damping force due to the particle sedimentation, the field-dependent damping forces are measured under two different operating conditions; one is just after filling the MRF and another after operating for 48 h. The proposed MRF is shown to be very effective in reducing adverse effects due to particle sedimentation.

This paper presents a mini-review of magnetorheological (MRF) fluid-based devices (MRF devices in short) including the brake, clutch, damper, and the mount reported from 2013 to 2018. MRF devices are usually designed based on three operating modes of MRF: flow mode, shear mode and squeeze mode. Each mode has its own characteristics for the high performance of application systems. Therefore, numerous design configurations of MRF devices have been proposed by many researchers. In this article, among many different MRF devices such as MRF brake, clutch, damper and MRF mount proposed over the last 6 years are examined in the sense of their structural configuration and operating principles. Certain advantages and demerits of each MRF device are also discussed. In addition, some useful design guidelines of MRF devices, which are absolutely different from developed MRF devices so far, are provided to enhance design simplicity and control performance.

This work proposes a novel adaptive hybrid controller based on the sliding mode controller and H-infinity control technique, and its effectiveness is verified by implementing it in vibration control of a vehicle seat suspension featuring a magneto-rheological damper. As a first step, a sliding surface of the sliding mode controller is established and used as a bridge to formulate the proposed controller. In this process, two matrices such as Hurwitz constants matrix are used as components of the sliding surface and H-infinity technique are adopted to achieve robust stability. Secondly, a fuzzy logic model based on the interval type 2 fuzzy model which is featured by online clustering is established and integrated to take account for external disturbances. Subsequently, a new adaptive hybrid controller is formulated with a solid proof of the robust stability. Then, the effectiveness is demonstrated by implementing the proposed hybrid controller on the vibration control of a vehicle seat suspension associated with a controllable damper. Vibration control performances are evaluated on bump and random road profiles by presenting both displacement and acceleration on the seat and the driver positions. In addition, a comparative study between the proposed and one of existing controllers is undertaken to highlight some benefits of the hybrid adaptive controller developed in this work.