Development of Magnetorheological Engine Mount Test Rig

Ride comfort is an important factor in any road vehicle performance. Nonetheless, passenger ride comfort is sometimes affected by the vibrations resulting from the road irregularities. Vehicle ride comfort is also often compromised by engine vibration. Engine mount is one of the devices which act as vibration isolator from unwanted vibration from engine to the driver and passengers. This paper explains the development of the test rig used for laboratory testing of Magnetorheological (MR) engine mount characterization. MR engine mount was developed to investigate the vibration isolation process. An engine mount test machine was designed to measure the displacement, relative velocity and damper force with respect to current supply to characterize the hysteresis behavior of the damper and as force tracking control of the MR engine mount.