Evaluation of Parametric Models Dedicated to a Magnetorheological Actuator Including Uncertainty and Sensitivity Analyses

Semi-active actuators have been used in engineering systems for vibration control purposes. For instance, magnetorheological (MR) dampers are applied in support of vehicle seats and smart suspensions of bridges and buildings. Parametric and nonparametric approaches were developed to model MR actuators, in which the former presents well-established and representative models. In this context, this work aims at comparing the so-called Bingham, modified Bouc-Wen (BW), and hysteretic models dedicated to MR actuators. Typical inverse problems were solved to minimize the difference between the forces determined by using these models and experimental data. The obtained results demonstrated that the hysteretic model is better adapted to represent the considered MR actuator, presenting lower computational cost and easy implementation. Additionally, uncertainty and sensitivity analyses based on the interval approach were applied on the updated MR models aiming to determine the working envelopes associated with the most important parameters of the models.