Pre-Design and Feasibility Analysis of a Magneto-Rheological Braking System for Electric Vehicles

Magneto-Rheological (MR) Fluid started to be used for industrial applications in the last 20 years, and, from that moment on, innovative uses have been evaluated for different applications to exploit its characteristic of changing yield stress as a function of the magnetic field applied. Because of the complexity of the behavior of the MR fluid, it is necessary to perform lots of simulations, combining multi-physical software capable of evaluating all the material’s characteristics. The paper proposes a strategy capable of quickly verifying the feasibility of an innovative MR system, considering a sufficient accuracy of the approximation, able to easily verify the principal criticalities of the innovative applications concerning the MR fluid main electromagnetic and fluid-dynamic capabilities. The procedure follows the main steps: 1. design the solution (functionally related to the MR principles); 2. steady-state analyses (performed respectively with Altair Flux and Altair Acusolve) needed for defining the electromagnetic and the fluid-dynamic behavior of the fluid application; 3. after the basic feasibility definition, material, and geometrical optimization are performed for maximizing the MR capabilities into the innovative system design. The proposed strategy has been used to validate the feasibility analysis of a Magneto-Rheological Brake for automotive applications, particularly for electric vehicles. Once the design phase defines a preliminary functional geometry for the application taken into consideration, it is needed to validate (through software analysis) the effectiveness of the innovative layout and its capabilities to reach the expected results, before developing a prototype that requires an important economical effort.