Vibration suppression of railway vehicles using a magneto-rheological fluid damper and semi-active virtual tuned mass damper control

A semi-active virtual tuned mass damper (SAVTMD) control algorithm is developed to suppress vibrations of a railway vehicle by using magneto-rheological (MR) damper. To this end, a virtual-tuned-mass-damper control algorithm analogous to the tuned mass damper was developed prior to the semi-active application. The proposed SAVTMD control algorithm uses the acceleration of the car body directly, so that it is more practical than the sky-hook control algorithm that uses the velocity of the car body. The application of the SAVTMD control to a real MR fluid damper is discussed, and a step-by-step procedure to calculate the command voltage to the driver of the MR fluid damper is presented. A hardwarein-the-loop simulation system developed in the previous study is used to test the SAVTMD control algorithm. The theoretical and experimental results showed that the proposed SAVTMD control algorithm is more effective than is the semi-active sky-hook control in suppressing vibrations of the car body of the railway vehicle by the MR damper.