Dynamic Analysis of Gimbal Structure System Including Nonlinear Elastic Rubber Vibration Isolator with Shock Acceleration

When shock acceleration is applied to a mechanical system, it may cause malfunctioning and damage to the system. Hence, to prevent these problems when developing a gimbal structure system for observation reconnaissance, the MIL-STD-810G shock standard must be satisfied as a design specification. Rubber vibration isolators are generally assembled on the base of the system in order to reduce the shock transferred from the aircraft. It is difficult to analyze the transient behavior of the system accurately, because rubber has a nonlinear load-deformation curve. To treat the nonlinear characteristic of the rubber, bilinear approximation was introduced. Using this assumption, transient responses of the system under base shock acceleration were calculated by the finite element method. In addition, experiments with a true prototype were performed using the same conditions as the analytical model. Compared with experimental data, the proposed numerical method is useful for the transient analysis of gimbal structure systems, including rubber vibration isolators with nonlinear stiffness and damping.