Bio-Inspired Multi-directional Vibration Isolator with Bending Strips

Design a multi-directional vibration isolator with concise configuration, low cost and high performance.

A closed ring by bending an elastic strip inward serves as a positive stiffness component, while a buckled arch by bending an identical strip outward servers as a negative stiffness component. Aligning the closed ring and the buckled arch parallelly and orthogonally yields an isolator with high-static and low-dynamic stiffness property.

Theoretical analyses derive the load–displacement relations of the closed ring and the buckled arch, along with the approximate formulas for positive and negative stiffness design. Numerical simulations validate the efficacy of the theoretical method. Experiments verify the outstanding isolation performance in the vertical direction and good isolation performance in horizontal plane by implementing sinusoidal sweep frequency and band-limited noise tests.

It exhibits outstanding isolation performance in the vertical direction, and shows the anisotropy of isolation performance in horizontal plane. Furthermore, it possesses in-situ tunability of load-bearing capacity and isolation performance.