Nonlinear analysis, design and vibration isolation for a bilinear system with time-delayed cubic velocity feedback

This paper combines cubic nonlinearity and time delay to improve the performance of vibration isolation. Nonlinear dynamics properties, design methodology and isolation performance are studied for a piecewise bilinear vibration isolation system with the time-delayed cubic velocity feedback control. By the multi-scale perturbation method, the equivalent stiffness and damping are first defined to interpret the effect of feedback control loop on dynamics behaviours, such as frequency island phenomenon. Then, a design criterion is proposed to suppress the jump phenomenon induced by the saddle-node bifurcation. With the purpose of obtaining the desirable vibration isolation performance, stability conditions are obtained to find appropriate feedback parameters including gain and time delay. Last, the influence of the feedback parameters on vibration transmissibility is assessed. Results show that the strategy developed in this paper is practicable and feedback parameters are significant factors to alter dynamics behaviours, and more importantly, to improve the isolation effectiveness for the bilinear isolation system. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.