A Study of a Pendulum-Like Vibration Isolator With Quasi-Zero-Stiffness

This article introduces a pendulum element to a 3-spring vibration isolator to achieve a high-static-low-dynamic (HSLD) stiffness or even quasi-zero stiffness (QZS) around the equilibrium position. Numerical simulation is given and the harmonic balance method (HBM) is used to obtain time responses for analysis. Effects of different parameters on the isolation performance are studied and summarized. Approximation force and displacement transmissibility of the system are calculated to evaluate the isolation performance. Comparisons are made with those of an equivalent linear isolator and the typical 1 degree-of-freedom (DOF) QZS isolator. Results show that the novel vibration isolator performs better than existing isolators under selected parameters. The left bent backbone of the novel isolator demonstrates evident softening geometric nonlinearity. Therefore, it achieves a wider frequency range of isolation than the linear 1DOF isolator and typical 3-spring QZS isolator. Moreover, the transmissibility of the novel isolator is smaller at higher frequencies as the jump phenomenon occurs on the left.

Beneficial performance of a quasi-zero stiffness vibration isolator with generalized geometric nonlinear damping

Generalized geometric nonlinear damping based on the viscous damper with a non-negative velocity exponent is proposed to improve the isolation performance of a quasi-zero stiffness (QZS) vibration isolator in this paper. Firstly, the generalized geometric nonlinear damping characteristic is derived. Then, the amplitude-frequency responses of the QZS vibration isolator under force and base excitations are obtained, respectively, using the averaging method. Parametric analysis of the force and displacement transmissibility is conducted subsequently. At last, two phenomena are explained from the viewpoint of the equivalent damping ratio. The results show that decreasing the velocity exponent of the horizontal damper is beneficial to reduce the force transmissibility in the resonant region. For the case of base excitation, it is beneficial to select a smaller velocity exponent only when the nonlinear damping ratio is relatively large.