Electrorheological fluid damper for seismic protection of structures

摘要

An electrorheological (ER) fluid damper suitable for vibration and seismic protection of civil structures has been designed, constructed and is under testing. The damper consist of an outer cylinder and a piston rod that pushes the ER-fluid through a stationary annular duct. The design of the damper was based on approximate calculations based on the Hagen-Poiseille flow theory. It is found that the Hagen-Poiseille theory predicts satisfactorily the damper response at moderate values of the flow rate. Experimental results on the damper response with and without the presence of electric field are presented. The average fluid velocity in the ER-duct has to be kept relatively small so that viscous stresses do not dominate over `yield' stresses.