Over the past three decades, a great deal of interest has been generated regarding the use of structural protective systems to mitigate the effects of dynamic environmental hazards, such as earth quakes and strong wind, on Civil Engineering structures. These systems usually employ supplemental damping devices to increase the energy dissipation capability of the protected structure. One of the most promising new devices proposed for structural protection is Magneto rheological (MR) fluid dampers because of their mechanical simplicity, high dynamic range, low pressure requirements, large force capacity and robustness, this class of devices has been shown to mesh well within application demands and constraints to offer an attractive means of protecting Civil infrastructure systems against dynamic loading.
The focus of the paper is to develop a fundamental understanding of large scale MR dampers for the purpose of designing and implementing these “smart” damping devices in large- scale structures for natural hazard mitigation.
