THE ELECTRORHEOLOGICAL AUTOMOTIVE ENGINE MOUNT

A recent patent filed by the authors has highlighted the potential adv antages of employing ER fluids in tension and compression rather than, as more often reported, in shear. This increased capability is utilis ed in the present paper in the study of a prototype automotive engine mount, a device which can benefit from the controllable properties of ER fluids. The paper presents some recently acquired experimental resu lts of the effect of a change in the voltage applied across the ER flu id on the magnitude of the transmitted vibration and also outlines a t ime-dependent theoretical analysis assuming a non-Newtonian characteri stic for the fluid in squeeze-flow.