Study on the space frame structures incorporated with magnetorheological dampers

Magnetorheological damper has received significant attention in recent years due to the reason that it can offer adaptability of active control devices without requiring the associated large power sources. In this paper, performance tests on a MR damper are carried out under different currents, excitation amplitudes and frequencies, the damping characteristics and energy dissipation capacity of the MR damper are analyzed. Elasto-plastic dynamic analysis on a space frame structure incorporated with MR dampers is conducted, and numerical analysis results show that MR dampers can significantly mitigate the structural vibration responses. Finally, the genetic algorithm with the improved binary crossover and mutation technique is adopted to optimize the arrangement of MR dampers. Numerical results show that dynamic responses of the optimal controlled structure are mitigated more effectively.