Design and evaluation of an MRF damper for semi-active vibration control of the machining processes

Cutting forces and vibrations generated during machining significantly affects the cutting tool and the integrity of the workpiece surface. Therefore, it is necessary to control or reduce those vibrations. Among the different vibration control methods, semi-active and active vibration control approaches are more effective than traditional methods. Also, with recent advancements in smart fluids and materials, the Magnetorheological fluid has gained attention in semi-active vibration control. In the present study, the novel monotube MRF damper is designed, fabricated, and evaluated for use in an end-milling process. The MRF damper has higher radial dimensions to develop a large damping force and reduce system complexity. The performance of a developed MRF damper is analyzed using the Bouc-Wen model, whose parameters are tuned for the developed MRF damper and validated experimentally under the different excitation currents, frequencies, and amplitude. The experimental and simulated damping forces are well agreed with each other, having a range of 13%–17%. The damper provides a maximum damping force of 1700 N under the excitation current of 2 A, and a frequency of 1 Hz at the amplitude of 8 mm. Moreover, it was also observed that the excitation current has a higher influence on the damping force than the frequency and amplitude. Thus, the developed MRF is further used in end-milling to reduce the cutting forces generated during the material removal, which shows that vibration damping significantly reduces 40%–65% of the cutting forces generated during the normal end-milling operation.