Design and Characteristics Analysis of a Nonlinear Isolator Using a Curved-Mount-Spring-Roller Mechanism as Negative Stiffness Element

The characteristics of a passive nonlinear isolator are developed by combining a curved-mount-spring-roller mechanism as a negative stiffness corrector in parallel with a vertical linear spring. The static characteristics of the isolator are presented, and the configurative parameters are optimized to achieve a wider displacement range at the equilibrium position where the isolator has a low stiffness and the stiffness changes slightly. The restoring force of the isolator is approximated using a Taylor expansion to a cubic stiffness. Considering the overload and underload conditions, a dynamic equation is established as a Helmholtz-Duffing equation, and the resonance response of the nonlinear system is determined by employing the harmonic balance method (HBM). The frequency response curves (FRCs) are obtained for displacement excitations. The absolute displacement and acceleration transmissibility are defined and investigated to evaluate the performance of the nonlinear isolator, and they are compared with an equivalent linear isolator that can support the same mass with the same static deflection as the proposed isolator. The effects of the amplitude of the excitation, the offset displacement, and the damping ratio on the dynamic characteristics and the transmissibility performance are considered, and experiments are carried out to verify the above analysis. The results show that the overload and underload system can outperform the counterparts with the linear stiffness, softening stiffness, softening-hardening stiffness, and hardening stiffness with the magnitude of the excitation amplitude, and that its isolation performance is generally better than that of a linear system. The transmissibility, response, and resonance frequency of the system are affected by the excitation amplitude, offset displacement, cubic stiffness, and damping ratio. To obtain a better isolation performance, an appropriate mass, not-too-large amplitude, and larger damper are necessary for the proposed isolator.