On the characteristics of a quasi-zero stiffness isolator using Euler buckled beam as negative stiffness corrector

The characteristics of a passive nonlinear isolator which is developed by parallelly adding a negative stiffness corrector to a linear spring are studied. The negative stiffness corrector, which is formed by Euler buckled beams can offer negative stiffness to the isolator at the equilibrium position in order to lower the overall dynamic stiffness of the isolator and without sacrificing the support capacity compared to the linear isolator. The static characteristics of the stiffness corrector as well as the nonlinear isolator are presented and the system parameters which can offer zero stiffness at the equilibrium point are derived. The restoring force of the nonlinear isolator after loaded is approximated using the Taylor expansion to pure cubic stiffness. The dynamic equation is established and the frequency response curves (FRCs) are obtained by using the Harmonic Balance Method (HBM) for both force and displacement excitations. The force and displacement transmissibility of the nonlinear isolator are defined and investigated, and the isolation performance is compared with an equivalent linear isolator which can support the same mass with the same static deflection as the nonlinear isolator. The effects of the amplitude of the excitation and damping ratio on the transmissibility performance are considered. The results demonstrate that the proposed zero dynamic stiffness nonlinear isolator can outperform the equivalent linear one for certain frequencies, and the performance is related to the magnitude of the excitation amplitude. Unlike the linear isolator, in the nonlinear isolator for base displacement excitation, unbounded response or transmissibility can occur which is not observed for force excitation case. The performance can also be improved by adjusting the configurations of the beams. Some useful guidelines for choosing system parameters such as the properties of the beams and the stiffness relationship between the beams and the linear spring are given. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.