Design and control of a hybrid mount featuring a magnetorheological fluid and a piezostack

In this study, a hybrid mount featuring a magnetorheological (MR) fluid and a piezostack is devised to reduce vibrations occuring in dynamic systems which are operated in a wide frequency range. An MR fluid is adopted to improve isolation performance at resonant low frequencies, whereas a piezostack actuator is adopted for performance improvement at non-resonant high frequencies. As a first step, a passive rubber part is manufactured and its dynamic characteristics are experimentally evaluated. By adopting the MR fluid and the piezostack, semi-active and active actuating mechanisms are devised and their mathematical models are derived. In particular, the magnetic circuit for MR operation is optimally designed via finite element analysis. After evaluating the dynamic characteristics of the manufactured MR device and inertial piezostack actuator, the proposed hybrid mount is then established by integrating them with the rubber part. Subsequently, a vibration control system is constructed using the proposed hybrid mount, and a sliding mode controller (SMC) is designed to attenuate the vibrations transmitted from the base excitation. Control performances of the proposed mount are experimentally evaluated in time and frequency domains.