Magnetorheological Smart Automotive Engine Mount

Abstract

An ideal engine mount system isolates vibrations caused by engine dynamic disturbances in various speed ranges, and prevents engine bounce originated by shock excitations. The stiffness and damping of the ideal engine mount are functions of the frequency and amplitude of vibration. To avoid transmission of medium to high frequency and low amplitude vibrations, an idle engine mount should be ‘Soft’ (low dynamic stiffness). On the other hand, road excitations passing through the tires and vehicle suspension system cause the structural- vibrations of low frequency and high amplitude. To deal with this case, an idle engine mount should be ‘Stiff’ (high dynamic stiffness). Such contradictory requirements from an engine mount demands engine mount to be smart. The aim of the present paper is to target a smart mount which will perform similar to Ideal mount. The present paper proposes MRF mount to provide variable dynamic stiffness characteristics. A theoretical design of MRF mount system has been sketched and performance evaluation of MR mount approaching to the ideal engine mount has been presented.